


Road To Redemption

by your_local_friendly_ghost



Series: Changing Tides [2]
Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gay Male Character, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Character, M/M, MORE men suffering, Medication, Physical hurt/comfort, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Slow Build, Slow Burn, absolutely fucking not tew2 compliant, build slower than my brain lacking serotonin, casual lesbians, do NOT test god, do not i repeat DO NOT try alcohol with depression/psychosis medication, fucking conspiracies and shit, getting over your missing wife the hard way, i guess, innacurate description of hacking, me ; doing absolutely what i want : I Am Writer, my man i've never hacked anyone i don't know how that works, myra sorry but i had to, oh boy ! !, quick description of a crime scene, seeing your bro naked but it’s NOT GAY, still no sex they still copin', this was thought out MONTHS before tew2 was even announced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 14:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11969730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_local_friendly_ghost/pseuds/your_local_friendly_ghost
Summary: A friendly bond, like a ribbon, made a rope by trauma and nightmares, sees itself taking the colors of something more than a friendship as Sebastian and Joseph cling onto each other not to lose their minds again. (sequel of Out Of Hell And Into The Light)





	1. The Surviving.

The routine they built doesn't really hide the chaos they see, at night, behind the curtains of their eyelids, but they're trying.  
When Sebastian wakes up first, he doesn't leave the bed until he's seen Joseph opens his own eyes. He makes sure his partner knows where he's going before letting him emerge on his own from the depths of sleep, still under the warm blankets.  
When Joseph wakes up first, however, he gets out of the bed immediately. He leaves a little note on a yellow paper, his curvy writing announcing “Good morning, Sebastian. I am in the kitchen”, “Hello, Seb. I will be done with the bathroom in ten minutes.”.  
They're often found sitting close, elbows touching, sleeping closer, in each other's arms.  
Some days, the two of them occupy the bathroom at the same time, Sebastian taking cautious care of his stubble and Joseph combing his hair with slender fingers sticky with hair product.

 

Sebastian went back to his apartment, once.  
When he opened the door, memories crawled at him like hungry beasts dripping with madness, teeth bare, ravenous, and they jumped at his throat as he frantically searched his room for a photograph.  
He found it.  
His eyes laid themselves on the face of his dead daughter and missing wife, and he cried out in pain. Joseph barged into the apartment, gun in hand, calling his partner’s name.  
Sebastian ran out, holding the picture against his chest and pressed pressed Joseph to “get out let’s get the fuck out” as the monsters tailgated him, singing hymns for their future feast.  
They crashed on the slammed door in a wet, viscid sound, howling in agony, and the two men ran down the stairs as if they were pursued by their nightmares.  
They drove away and swore to never come back.

 

There were dawns where their nightmares woke them up and followed them everywhere they went, and they found themselves unable to leave the other. On these mornings, it was not unusual to see one of them using the shower as the other guarded the door, gun in fist, back turned to the other man to respect his privacy but close enough to react if something attacked.  
Eventually, the monsters faded under the words of the therapists and mental exercises to learn to banish them, leaving only their shadows, but the two men kept using the bathroom together.  
Not making any eye contact, they talk about the day to come, the night that passed. Sometimes, when one of them is feeling particularly bad for any reason, the other sits on the edge of the tub and helps his partner wash his hair, back and shoulder. When Joseph is the one taking care of the other man, he laughs at how similar yet different it is from the times he had to help a drunk, sad and tired Sebastian wash his alcohol-covered skin.

 

 

 


	2. One Hell Of A Night.

There has been a night where Sebastian was woken up before 3am.  
The bed was empty besides him.  
The sharp spark of panic stinging his chest, he rose on his elbows and searched the room with his tired eyes, sleep blurring the furniture and distorting the shadows. Sebastian tried to stay still for some more seconds, hearing out for steps in the corridor, or the flush going off, literally anything that could mean his partner was coming back.  
But not a noise broke the silence. Nothing spoke into the night.  
Sebastian jumped out of the bed, terror weighting his limbs, and stormed out of the room.  
In the hallway, he checked both sides, looking for light. He noticed the bathroom door was pushed open and yellow light was crawling under it.  
Slowly, carefully, Sebastian approached. No water was running – Joseph wasn't drinking, taking an early shower or refreshing his face. Something felt very wrong.  
The upsetting image of Joseph, sitting on the floor with claw marks at his throat flashed in Sebastian's mind and he sped up, pushing the door open with a panicked and sudden noise.  
His breath got stuck in his throat.  
Joseph was standing at the sink, holding onto the rims, head hanging heavy off his shoulder. His gun was lying just next to his hand.

“Joseph ? What's going on ?" Sebastian croaked, fear pondering his shoulders and weighing on his lungs.

Slowly, Joseph lifted his head to look at the older man. His eyes were darker than usual, blank, tired. His lips were parted to let out exhausted breaths.

“Oh... hello Sebastian,” he said, voice monotone. His eyes went back on his gun. “I was just... thinking.”

Sebastian came closer, his hand coming to rest on his partner's arm.

“I just had... some bad thoughts.” Joseph shook his head. “But it's fine now. It's all fine.”

With his free hand, Sebastian took the younger man's weapon.

“I think I know what you were thinking about,” he declared in a voice he wanted calm. “But if it's getting bad again –“ he added, the memories of Joseph telling him how bad he wanted to kill himself, back in Ruvik's disturbed mind, tasting like poison on his tongue, “ – please, please talk to me about that.”

Joseph sighed. His tense shoulders seemed to relax, more tired than calm.

“I don't want to bother you with that.”

_Oh god, not that again. We've talked about that._

“You're not bothering me,” Sebastian assured. “I'm going to tell you that until you don't need it anymore.”

Joseph showed a tiny smile.

“Thanks, Seb,” he whispered.

Sebastian put one of his large hands between Joseph's shoulder blades in a protective and soothing gesture.

“Let's go back to sleep,” he calmly said.

Joseph only nodded.

Back in the bedroom, Sebastian hid Joseph's gun in the drawer of his nightstand and guided his partner back under the blankets.

“I'm sorry,” Joseph whispered as the two of them had slided under the covers. “I'm not supposed to feel like that anymore.”

Sebastian turned to his partner.

“You're not going to get better immediately,” he said in a empathetic voice. “There are moments you're going to feel terrible, that's normal.”

 _We already have had this conversation, haven't we ?_  
Joseph nodded slowly.

“We should sleep now. Tomorrow is another day,” Sebastian added, gently patting his partner's arm.  
“Yeah...”

The light went off and Sebastian shifted on his side, turning his back to Joseph, as if facing him would mean invading his privacy.  
Silence came in.

When the only noise in the room was the two men's breathing, the night started speaking a little louder. Engines, wind, honks, deep voices from passers-by like fire sparks in the dark of the city's nocturnal life.  
When Sebastian tried to close his eyes, the image of Joseph's gun next to his hand painted itself on his eyelids. That was going to haunt him.  
Shaken by the thought, he twisted around and pulled the younger man into a tight embrace. Sebastian heard Joseph's surprise in his voice at his sudden move. He held his partner as close as he could, not letting even a millimeter separate their bodies, and ran a large hand in Joseph's messy hair.  
He didn't say a thing, hoping his gesture would speak for itself. He didn't have the courage to say “don't kill yourself”. Those words tasted bitter on his tongue and he didn't want their astringency to poison Joseph's mind and make him feel guilt.  
Eventually, Joseph's arms looped around Sebastian's waist and his cold nose buried itself in the crook of his partner's neck.

 

The next day, Sebastian went to his appointment.

“You seem shaken up today,” the psychiatrist said as she observed him. “Did something happen ?”

Sebastian looked at her furtively. He took a deep breath.

“You know my, um, roommate, Joseph Oda, right ? He sees you too.”

The woman straightened up.

“I know him, but I'm not supposed to talk about him with you.”  
“No, no, I just – listen. Last time I found him in the bathroom with his gun at his side.”, Sebastian explained, words acid in his throat.

She looked at him with concerned eyes.

“He looked really bad, and I thought – I really thought he was gonna kill himself.”

Sebastian took a deep, deep breath, tears burning at the corners of his eyes.

“I'm terrified. He had already told me he had suicidal ideas before everything went to hell, and I, I – I don't want to discover him one day lying dead in our bathroom, a bullet in the brain.”

He was shaking, his hands grabbing the armrests so hard his knuckles were turning white.

“So please, tell me what is wrong with him. I want to help him. I don't want to lose him,” Sebastian finished, choking back tears, words pouring out of his mouth like burning water.

The psychiatrist watched him try to regain a sense of composure, trying the deep-breath exercises everyone told him to do. Then, she took at her turn a deep breath and pulled another file from the pile in the corner of her desk. Joseph's name and date of birth were written at the top. She went through the pages with her slender fingers.

“Your partner suffers from mild suicidal ideation – even if it can look impressive, he told me he would never actually try anything. We're still trying to determine if it's here as an aftermath of trauma or as a symptom of another illness, like depression, or something like that.”

She pulled a sheet from the file.

“The fact that he has weapons at his disposition can result in him taking them and putting himself in situations that could be upsetting for you to see, but he feels like he's, I quote, 'too much of a coward to try anything'.”

She put the page back and closed the folder.

“Your roommate is trying to get better, and you being here with him aspires him to. I would advise you just keep doing what you already do – being here for him, listening, etc. You two are doing just fine,” she finished with a tender voice.

Sebastian tried to smile through the burn of the salt behind his eyelids.  
The psychiatrist put Oda's file back in the pile and got back to Sebastian's.

“But we're not here to talk about him. We're here to talk about you. I know you're worried about him, but you have many things to get off your chest too.”

Sebastian sighed. His problems really didn't feel important compared to his suicidal partner, his dead daughter and missing wife.

 

 

 


	3. To Those Who Live Again.

Sebastian stopped smoking and now his arms are covered in nicotine patches. Both of Joseph and his therapist encourage him to eat healthy, do some exercise, have walks through the parks. Searching in his partner's cookbooks, he eventually found some recipes that seemed healthy in his eyes.  
There are evenings where he and Joseph pace through the shelves of the store across the street, looking for every ingredient with caution. Then, they head back Joseph's apartment and start cooking. Sometimes, Sebastian fucks up a very simple step of the recipe, and Joseph's laugh makes it impossible to get angry.

 

He also stopped drinking. The withdrawal symptoms were not as bad as he expected to be, considering his long-lasting addiction, but his brain seemed to busy torturing itself, steeping in acidic memories, to hurt him over his lack of drinking.  
Once, just once, he tried to have a whiskey at the bar he and Joseph were in.  
He tasted his own despair and childish fear of Ruvik’s ghost, lingering in the back of his scarred brain, and had to run to the bathroom to puke his drink out.  
Another time, Joseph brought japanese plum liqueur when he came home from his therapy appointment.

“... It didn’t go well ?" Sebastian asked, only half-mocking, pointing the bottle.  
“Nothing like that !" Joseph answered cheerily, holding out a glass for Sebastian to take.

They put some music on – le Clair de Lune, Sebastian’s new favourite – and sat in Joseph’s comfortable couch. They poured as little as they hoped their meds would let them take – not a lot, that is. Joseph said that he had bought the smallest bottle so the wine wouldn’t go to waste, even if they couldn’t drink much.  
They toasted.  
The liquor was sweet, almost honeyed with a tart aftertone on Sebastian’s tongue. He hadn’t tasted anything like that and, in his brain, the new aroma immediately associated itself with his partner’s face. Sebastian closed his eyes, smiling softly, and hoped he could drink that wine with the only image flashing in his mind being Joseph’s smile.

 

In the middle of the night, when the last nails of a nightmare had fallen out of his mind, Sebastian had to run to the bathroom to puke the taste of guts out, eventually throwing the liqueur up in the process. Joseph stepped in and closed the door behind him, his footsteps muffled by his socks.  
Sebastian could see, out of the corner of his eye, his partner pouring faucet water in a hard plastic cup.  
Joseph came to kneel neck to him and gives him the cup, careful not to let either of them drop it. His free hands started rubbing circles on Sebastian’s back.

“Well, maybe plum liqueur doesn’t do it for you, huh ?" he mumbled, his voice low and sleepy.  
“It’s not the wine,” Sebastian answered after spitting the water, “it’s another nightmare.”

Joseph let out a small “oh…” as he continued to pat the older man’s back until his mouth tasted clean.

“I hope I can keep it down next time,” Sebastian said, trying to smile.

Joseph mimicked him, two men with tired grimaces on their faces.

Eventually, they got back to the bedroom. Joseph took shelter under the blanket, wrapping himself comfortably. Sebastian turned off the nightstand light.

“Hey, where did you buy that ?" he asked.

Joseph didn’t answer. Joseph was already asleep.  
Sebastian smiled and rolled on his side, turning his back to his partner, adjusting his pillow under his head.  
Soon, he felt Joseph curl up against him.

 

There are nights where Sebastian looks at his tanned arms and observes every inch of skin where the nicotine patches lay.  
There are times where he thinks that he misses smoking, but he remembers the foul smell of burning flesh the blue smoke would send to his nostrils, and he stops thinking about that.  
Quite often, Joseph, made dizzy by his strong medication, gently rubs Sebastian's skin where the nicotine ersatzes stick with his pale, slender fingers. Sebastian, sleepy and lightheaded, enjoys his partner's tenderness until he falls asleep.

 

Joseph rarely hallucinates now. The powerful urges of clawing at his throat only linger in the back of his mind like a weak thought, and he can manage that.  
The medications he takes after dinner often make his head fuzzy, cheeks a little hot, gently pulls his mind out of his body until he's dissociated, but he finds that funny.  
It's such a strange but pleasant sensation he's still happy to sleep off. In the morning, he wakes up next to Sebastian and can either appreciate the sight of his partner looking peaceful in his sleep, or watching him with sleepy, yet tender eyes.

 

There's something so comfortable about living like this.  
Slowly, softly, the two men are getting better.  
Little by little, their emotional skins grow back to hide their inner wounds, their backs straighten, their chins pulls themselves up.  
There is something fascinating about Joseph’s morning ritual – how his careful hands comb his hair back, fingers running through the locks, how he adjusts his tie with a meticulous precision, flattens his shirt, his vest, how his slender fingers disappear in leather. His sharp gaze and well-structured face emerge from under the last stains of dissolving nightmares or vanishing sleepiness, and Sebastian finds back the sharp-looking man he worked with for so long  
Joseph almost looks the same as before, and so does Sebastian. The stern, competent detective with the gently scolding voice, the leather gloves, cautiously taking notes in his black notebook, and the older man with broad shoulder, large hands, his sharp gaze that make people and places speak and admit their crimes to his colleagues and his sense of justice.  
Every day, the two partners find instants where they congratulate, praise, uplift each other.  
Almost the same as before.

 

In the office, people notice. Sebastian and Joseph have shed their skins of two ghosts with blank, dark eyes full of nightmares, and they emerged, if not quite the same as before, more upright, more focused, alive again.  
There are furtive instants where their hands brush, they stand close and their shoulders touch. An officer noticed Castellanos' hands gently patting Joseph's shoulders or back more often than before.  
Touches like reassurances, “I'm here”, “we're here”, “we're alive”, “we're never going back to hell”.

 

There are still days where they come crashing down, the wounds in their minds reopening and nightmares spurting from the cuts like red geysers from the depths of hell, and they start choking on their saliva and tears and the blood and guts of the hundreds of monsters they killed to survive. On those days, they barricade themselves in their shared apartment, hold onto each other like drowning men onto lifebuoys and desperately try to talk the other through it all.  
They both have their particular way of calming the other ; Sebastian gently cradles Joseph in his arms, rocking him back and forth while trying to make him talk, and Oda throws his arms around his partner and runs his hand through the brown hair, petting his head until the big of the crisis is over.  
When they're finally calm, they stay some more time in each other's arms, slowly finding their composure again.  
Then, they straighten up, lift their chins, square their shoulders. They stand back up and move on, on until the next breakdown. That's the way they found to survive.  
And they do.

 

 

 


	4. The Traitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for description of a crime scene !

It's a day, or rather a night, where Joseph is working outdoors. The Chief finally agreed to let them take cases that didn’t require only paperwork, and Oda was the first to test the waters, trying his hurt mind to the cold sea of crimes they used to swim in.

He was sent with two guys from forensics and a patrol of officers on a strange crime scene. Sebastian is staying in his office and puts together the pictures and description Joseph sends him. His phone doesn't stop buzzing, flashing an aggressive white light in the low-lit room.

“the victim is a girl/young woman, probably in her late teens. She's 4'1'', blond hair blue eyes, very pale skin. Many healed scars on her right thigh.”

Sebastian takes note on his computer.

“they found her in her underwear, suspended like an acrobat to the beams of the ceiling, 19 feet from the ground, forced in vertical splits with one rope, hands pulled up by another. Red rope. Her head was hanging back.”

“ she was strangled with something soft, like a neckerchief. We haven't found it.” “ many bruises, especially on her face. Seems like the person who did that wanted to disfigure her.” “ fresh cuts on her back, it spells 'be pretty only for me'. We haven't found the weapon.” “ no marks of sexual violence.”

Sebastian closes his eyes, imagines the scene. The girl suspended like a puppet from the ceiling, blood dripping from her shoulder blades, head thrown back, eyes dry and blank, maybe wide opened.

It's fucked up, but being able to create a creepy picture without it flashing by itself in Sebastian's mind feels new and strangely refreshing.

“jealous guy who didn't want his girlfriend to see someone else, or maybe got angry when she left him ?" he texts the other man.

“probable. We've seen scenes like that before, havn't we ?”

“ haven't*”

 

Sebastian does a quick research in the KCPD's database.

 

S : “I mean if you're looking for a jealous man killing his girlfriend, we have more than a hundred names here. And nationwide easily a thousand. The toughest we had here were Preciado, Duran and Barber from 1990 to 2000, Elton, Cantrell, Pina, Walter, Williams, Mosher and more from 2000 to 2010...”

J : “first time we have such a strange staging though.”

S : “our guy likes circus ?”

J : “don't be silly. We'll investigate a little more and begin interrogating as soon as we have more info.”

S : “keep me informed”

J : “I will”

S : “stay safe”

J : “don't worry”

 

and Sebastian's phone goes silent. He starts typing the informations he's been given, thinking of the girl's parents they will have to inform. He sighs, cracks his fingers, and suddenly a huge black square is taking all of his screen. A terminal window that popped out of nowhere. Sebastian jumps back, startled. He looks everywhere on the monitor for a cross. He tries Esc, F11, backspace, enter, but the black, ominous square doesn't go away.

_What the fuck is that ?_

He starts panicking. Has he been hacked ? What kind of sci-fi movie setting is that ?

On the screen, a name appears and a line follows.

 

 **sn1tch :** mr castellanos ?

 

His breath hitches in his throat and a cold shiver kisses his spine.

 

 **sn1tch :** sir, i know you read me. please reply.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Who are you and how did you do that ?

 **sn1tch :** i can't tell you, and i did that with my skills.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Who. Are. You.

 **sn1tch :** please don't get angry. i have very important things to tell you.

 **CASTELLANOS :** If you don't even tell me your name, I won't trust you.

 **sn1tch :** please, sebastian. please, please, trust me.

 

Sebastian sinks back into his chair. What is this crazy hacker shit ? He's shaking, his mouth is dry.

_What the fuck, what the fuck ?!_

 

 **sn1tch :** I need you to trust me.

 

He sighs, closes his eyes and rubs his eyelids, hoping the screen would go back to normal when he reopens them, but “sn1tch” is still here. Waiting.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Fine. I'll try. What do you want from me ?

 **sn1tch :** i don't want anything. i am the one who has to give you something.

 **CASTELLANOS :** What kind of thing ?

 **sn1tch :** the truth.

 

Sebastian feels his heart beating in his throat, under the skin of his cheek. His whole body is skewered by panic.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Truth about what ?

 **sn1tch :** your wife. and your daughter.

 

The words blind him and he feels like a punch in his guts.

Myra's last words written before her disappearance come haunting him. The red picture of their house breaking down into flames flashes in his mind, and his nightmare of the dead, burnt body of his daughter follows.

Sebastian jumps off his chair and starts pacing around like a madman.

_Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god_

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Who are you to know about them ?

 **sn1tch :** i can't tell you.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Why not for fuck's sake ?!

 **sn1tch :** they're probably monitoring.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Who ?

 **sn1tch :** can't tell you either.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I need to know.

 **sn1tch :** so you can track me ? no. i'm not saying anything. my name is not important.

 **CASTELLANOS :** How can you be so sure ?

 **sn1tch :** my name is nothing compared to the truth.

 

Sebastian feels fat tears of terror, anticipation and guilt burning his eyes as flashbacks come crashing onto him like waves trying to drown him.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Then tell it for fuck's sake, tell it !

 **sn1tch :** okay.

 **sn1tch :** please sit down.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I am sitting down now spill it !

 **sn1tch :** it's going to hurt.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I don't care ! I don't care ! I have the right to know !

 **sn1tch :** that's what i thought too, that's why i contacted you.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Then what are you waiting for ?!

 **sn1tch :** do you have access to your emails ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** I do but how is that important ?! Tell me !

 **sn1tch :** i have pictures and videos to show you.

 

Sebastian's sight goes blurry, water and salt weighing his eyelashes. He brushes the tears off with the back of his hand. If he has to face a terrible truth, he'll face it with dry eyes.

 

 **sn1tch :** do you remember Beacon ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** How do you know about Beacon ?

 **sn1tch :** it is not important. so, do you ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** It's going to be very hard not to.

 **sn1tch :** okay. so do you remember ruvik and leslie ?

 

Victoriano's name makes Sebastian gag.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Yes.

 **sn1tch :** okay. and doctor jimenez ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** Isn't he dead ?

 **sn1tch :** not important.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I remember him.

 **sn1tch :** okay. now I'll ask you to pay close attention to what I'm going to say.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I'm listening.

 **sn1tch :** okay

 **sn1tch :** so

 **sn1tch :** once upon a time, a disturbed boy liked to play with dead things.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Ruvik ?

 **sn1tch :** yes. little disturbed boy got noticed by a sick, sick doctor, who, too, liked to play with dead things.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Jimenez, I suppose ?

 **sn1tch :** yes. when disturbed boy lost his sister, he got very very sad, and started wanting to play with brains to appease his sad mind, and maybe make his dear sister come back to life through his memories.

 **sn1tch :** you're following ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** Mostly.

 **sn1tch :** sick, sick doctor thought that the disturbed child's will to experiment on the human psyche would be very useful to him, as sick, sick doctor was working with sicker, sicker men and women.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Wait, what ?

 **sn1tch :** both ruvik and jimenez started working for something bigger.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Like what ?

 **sn1tch :** an organization. something big and ominous, that controlled everything it touched.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Organization ?

 **sn1tch :** you could compare it to the mafia, or to underground traffickers, except they're known to the people – if not for the fucked-up things they do, rather for being rich and powerful.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Okay...

 **sn1tch :** this organization was very interested in ruvik's experiments on the human psyche, and his newest creation, some kind of network that could links minds and memories.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Why ?

 **sn1tch :** because control. power. owning humanity, manipulating them, linking them together in an amalgam to control them and make them docile.

 

Sebastian runs to the window and presses his forehead to the cold glass, trying to calm his racing thoughts.

He feels like he knows where this is going.

He bites his fist to stop himself from screaming, then runs back to his computer.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Okay. And ?

 **sn1tch :** you were taken by this organization. they're the ones who put you through this hell.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Wait, wasn’t it Ruvik ?

 **sn1tch :** ruvik is in it with them.

 **sn1tch :** or rather, he’s in it /because/ of them.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Okay, but why did they take me ?

 **sn1tch :** you were getting too close to the truth. they wanted you close but not /too/ close.

 **CASTELLANOS :** What does that mean ?

 **sn1tch :** the first time, too, they feared you'd get too close.

 **CASTELLANOS** : What are you talking about ?

 **sn1tch :** they didn't want you on the elk river murders case

 **sn1tch :** they knew you'd discover something.

 **sn1tch :** you are the best detective of krimson city, after all

 **sn1tch :** so, before you could actually put your nose in this shit, they send someone.

 **sn1tch :** someone they made sure to put on that case so you wouldn't work on it anymore

 

Sebastian goes livid. His hands drop at his sides.

He takes five long, shaky, terrified breaths. He tries to raise his hand to the keyboard. It's shaking too. His whole body is shaking. He feels like his limbs are going to fall off his body.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Who did they send ?

 **sn1tch :** then, you got married. you had a beautiful wife, then a cute little daughter.

 **CASTELLANOS :** How do you know that ?

 **sn1tch :** and then, the fire.

 

A wound just reopened in Sebastian's mind. Pus and memories starts spilling from the cut. He chokes on flashbacks and tears.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** How. Do. You. Know. That.

 **sn1tch :** it was perfect, just perfect. it was what they wanted. what they needed. breaking the man that was after them so he would never bother them again.

 **CASTELLANOS :** They did that, didn't they ? The fire ?

 **sn1tch :** they sent someone. they're very good at staging. they know how to make an assassination look like an accident.

 

Sebastian lets himself fall off the chair. His knees hit the ground and send a spark of pain through his whole body, but he doesn't care. He curls on himself and cries harder. Thank god no one is here to hear him.

_I knew it I knew it I knew it_

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** I knew it wasn't an accident. I knew someone had killed Lily. Tell me who they are.

 **sn1tch :** i cannot.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I'll find you and I'll make you spit the truth out you fucking piece of shit !

 **sn1tch :** oh, but I'm going to tell you the truth.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Tell me ! Tell me ! For fuck's sake tell me !!

 

The black window disappears from his screen. Sebastian stays two seconds astounded before noticing a new email. He promptly tries to open it, his shaky fingers maltreating the mouse until he can click on the right spot.

 

<from : snitch@mbs.inc

to : s-castellanos@kcpd.us

subject : the truth

text : i'm so sorry>

 

and attached, three pictures.

Choking back tears, Sebastian opens the files.

It's Myra.

 

First picture is Myra standing up very straight in a formal suit. She's looking straight at the camera and flashing a smirk. On her right are standing Jimenez and two people in white, ominous-looking overall with what resembles a gas mask incorporated.

Second picture is Myra showing the camera a shiny badge with a proud smile. “Head of operations / HANSON Myra” is written in red and black.

Third picture is some kind of inauguration party. In the background, the STEM machine and its silver bathtubs are shining new. A man in suit is turning his back to the camera and cutting, with golden scissors, the red ribbon blocking access to the machinery. Jimenez, Myra and four other people are toasting, each other wearing a relaxed smile contrasting with their darker clothes.

 

There's a loud silence between Sebastian's ears. He doesn't even hear his phone buzzing. His mouth is hanging open and fat tears run marathons down his cheeks and chin and onto the keyboard.

The black window appear again.

 

 **sn1tch :** she was with them.

 **sn1tch :**  she /is/ with them.

 **sn1tch :** I'm so sorry, sebastian.

 **CASTELLANOS :** This can't be real.

 **sn1tch :** i'm so sorry.

 **CASTELLANOS :** This is fake. Those pictures are rigged.

 **sn1tch :** i wish they were.

 

Sebastian raises a shaky hand to wipe the tears off his face. They keep on coming anyway.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** This can't be happening.

 **CASTELLANOS :** We had a kid together for fuck's sake !

 **CASTELLANOS :** She would never let someone kill her own child !

 

A new email pops in.

_Fuck you !_

Sebastian opens it.

 

<from : snitchj@mbs.inc

to : s-castellanos@kcpd.us

subject : this one is a video

text : I was able to steal that from the boss' monitor camera. It's from october the 3rd 2011>

 

Sebastian clicks on the attached file and an impressively good-quality video opens.

 

The camera seems to be laying on a desk and is filming a red chair on the other side of it. A soft click (an intercom ?), followed by a masculine voice, are heard. “Let Hanson in”.

At the other side of the room, a door opens. Myra appears. She's wearing a casual dress, high heels and big earrings – Sebastian recognizes them, he bought them for her. Her coat is hanging on her right arm. She approaches with her classy nonchalance.

 

“Good evening !" she greets with a light smile.

“Good evening,” says the masculine voice, coming from nowhere. “Please, have a seat.”

Myra sits with grace on the offered chair. Her smile widens as her eyes run all over the desk.

“How are things going ?" the voice asks.

“According to the plan !" she answers cheerily as she arranges an earring.

“Good.”

 

The sound of papers being run through sizzles in Sebastian's hair.

 

“So, any plans for these daughter and husband of yours ?”

 

Sebastian stiffens in his chair. Instinctively, his fist closes, ready to punch – punch what ? He doesn't know. The screen, probably.

He watches Myra run her hand in her hair.

 

“I think we need to push Castellanos further – after all, we do need him on the verge of madness, don't we ? So I thought we should –“

 

Sebastian clicks pause. He feels like he knows what is coming. He's shaking as if a groundswell was growing in his chest. He holds his breath, ready for the wave to hit.

 

“ – kill his daughter and make sure he looks for the truth until he goes crazy.”

 

Sebastian throws himself on the floor. That's dramatic and idiot but he feels like he has too.

He wants to die, die, die so much. His chest hurts. The groundswell hit him in the torso and left an open wound on his stomach and now his emotional guts are spilling all over the floor.

The way she said “his daughter” makes Sebastian ill, she didn't even say “our daughter”, she didn't even involve herself in the child's life, it's _Sebastian's_ daughter, she has nothing to do with that, and Sebastian is choking on his own saliva and tears as his body bends and twists in physical pain.

 

“Just like everyone else who isn't one of ours,” Myra adds, making Sebastian push himself up to see her talking, “this girl is expendable.”

 

Expendable.

The word rings like hell's bells to Sebastian's ears.

Expendable.

It craves itself in Sebastian's mind. One more monster he'll have to fight. One more nightmare that will eat his brain raw.

 

 **sn1tch :** i'm so sorry, sebastian.

 **sn1tch :** it's probably so hard for you.

 **CASTELLANOS :** You have no idea.

 

He tries to breathe properly. He can't.

 

 **CASTELLANOS** : How come she doesn't care at all about Lily ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** I mean, Myra's the one that gave birth to her

 **CASTELLANOS :** She should be at least a little attached, shouldn't she ?

 

A new email. He opens it.

 

<from : snitch87@mbs.inc

to : s-castellanos@kcpd.us

subject : I know it hurts

text : this one hurts too >

 

Another video.

 

“Mrs Hanson ?" the same masculine voice asks.

“Yeah ?" Myra answers as she looks up from a computer with a square, imposing monitor.

“I was wondering, how do you feel about being a mother ? Having given birth to a child, and everything ?”

 

Myra's eyes go back to the massive screen and she shrugs.

 

“It was, well, and interesting experience. I've often been told that a woman had to be a mother at least once in her life, so... that's done,” she answers in a monotone voice.

“But what about all the mothering stuff ? Your body being forever altered by childbirth and pregnancy ?”

 

Myra offers another shrug.

 

“I don't really care, or mind. After all, I don't need a perfect, youthful, smooth and small body to do my work... I just need a perfect brain.”

 

She lets out a soft laugh and turns to her interlocutor with an enigmatic smile.

 

“Moreover, we have more interesting things to worry about...”

 

The voice and the woman share a laugh that sizzles creepily into Sebastian's ears.

 

Sebastian rubs his eyes. He's so, so tired, empty and drained.

 

 **sn1tch :** that must be so difficult to watch, i'm so sorry.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I still don't understand

 **CASTELLANOS :** how can you GIVE BIRTH to a HUMAN BEING and not care about him/her ?

 **sn1tch :** someone once asked her the same question

 **sn1tch :** she answered : “to pass the time, some people jump from buildings or planes with parachutes,

 **sn1tch :** some jump with elastics, some build cities with matches...

 **sn1tch :** well, I carried and gave birth to a kid. not that complicated.”

 

He sighs. His lungs feel so heavy in his chest.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Yeah

 **CASTELLANOS :** Sure

 **CASTELLANOS :** Why not

 **CASTELLANOS :** She couldn't just jump from buildings or make matches constructions to “pass the time”, could she

 **sn1tch :** that wouldn't have served the organization's purpose.

 **CASTELLANOS :** So everything she ever did was to “serve the organization's purpose” ?

 **sn1tch :** well, yes.

 **sn1tch :** from the moment she came to the administrator's office and asked if she could join them, everything she did was for their sake.

 **sn1tch :** even things she did /for her/ were indirectly for them.

 **CASTELLANOS :** But still

 **CASTELLANOS :** Carrying a BABY

 **CASTELLANOS :** For NINE MONTHS

 **CASTELLANOS :** In HER OWN BODY

 **CASTELLANOS :** How could she really do that all for them ?

 **sn1tch :** imagine a sniper

 **sn1tch :** a sniper that would lay down and stay still, eye on their target

 **sn1tch :** a sniper that would stay in that position for weeks, months, even years

 **sn1tch :** just to get the perfect shot

 **sn1tch :** the culmination of his/her wait

 **sn1tch :** hanson did just the same

 **sn1tch :** she has so, so much patience

 **sn1tch :** the highest “ranked” people all have, in this organization

 **sn1tch :** they can wait weeks, months, years to pick the people they want when they start rotting, like a fruit going bad

 

Sebastian is sitting limp in his chair. In an attempt to take a step back, he tries to shrug.

Bad move.

His heavy arms open the faucets of his eyes when they fall back at his sides.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** I still don't see how that's possible

 **CASTELLANOS :** She took part in the making of a human being. She carried Lily inside of her for nine long months and suffered hours to push her to life.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I can't seem to understand.

 **sn1tch :** sebastian, you saw with your own eyes a man's brain in a glass sphere reigning as a god on an inception-like fucked-up wonderland

 **sn1tch :** people mutating, barbed wire and spikes in their brains crawling after you to kill you

 **sn1tch :** your own partner's skin turning gray and red and black before he attacks you in a monstrous rage

 **sn1tch :** and the thing you can't understand is your ex-wife not caring about her child ?

 

Sebastian lets out a huffed, bitter, mocking laugh. Yeah, seen under that angle, that didn't seem to improbable. He rubs his tired, wet eyes.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** I have a question.

 **sn1tch :** yes ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** How did Myra fake being affected by Lily's death ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** She seemed genuinely upset. I can't imagine her faking it.

 **sn1tch :** in this organization, people are good, very good at lying.

 **sn1tch :** the highest “graded” of the organization are natural-born liars, manipulators, and even if they were not, they are trained to hide and fake emotions, manipulate, lie, fake, live double lives, lie and lie and lie and lie.

 **sn1tch :** this is how they got so rich and influential. fake your way to power.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Okay.

 

Sebastian crosses his arms on his desk and let his head fall in them. His tears soak his sleeves.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Did she also fake coming close to the secret behind Lily's death ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** Did she fake being so absorbed in her research she didn't talk to me anymore ?

 **sn1tch :** sebastian, she had nothing to research. she knew everything. she /was/ the secret.

 **sn1tch :** she only faked being affected so much so her disappearance would hurt you more, and make you look for the truth harder.

 **CASTELLANOS :** So she faked everything.

 **sn1tch :** life is a vast play to them

 **sn1tch :** and they are the actors, the stage management, the public.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Did she ever love me ?

 **sn1tch :** maybe ? i think it was more of scientific curiosity, the thrill of being able to manipulate another human being.

 **sn1tch :** i think she loved you as a little toy. a little pawn.

 **sn1tch :** loved the control.

 

Sebastian bites on his closed fist to muffle a pained scream. When he goes back to typing, he has deep teeth marks on his skin.

 

 **sn1tch :** she wanted you to stand on the edge of that cliff, and when you'd want to jump, they would steal the ground from underneath your feet and capture you.

 **sn1tch :** i know you're more used to male monsters, since they make up the most part of them.

 **sn1tch :** i'm sorry you had to discover your own (ex)wife is one of the few female ones.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Why did she organize it all ? Why did she leave me a note telling me she got close of something and had to disappear ? Why did she want me to find justice for Lily ? Why did she do all of that ?

 **sn1tch :** she wanted you trapped into the organization's net.

 **sn1tch :** tell a man not to get involved, and he will run head first into it. the truth is the most powerful bait of all.

 **sn1tch :** she wanted to lead you on the track to the truth without ever letting you touch it.

 **sn1tch :** she wanted you close, so close, the closest you could be without discovering it all. she wanted to push you to the edge of the cliff, broken and bruised, barely alive.

 **CASTELLANOS :** And once captured, what would they do with me ?

 **sn1tch :** they would use you as a bait to capture joseph, then the members of kcpd, one by one, until this city had no one to protect it.

 **sn1tch :** then, they would rise as protectors, ask for the people's total trust. they would use it. Abuse it.

 **sn1tch :** they would fuel terror in the people's minds until they were compliant and ready to do anything for protection.

 **CASTELLANOS** : … then, they would all plug them to their hellish machine to control them all.

 **sn1tch :** exactly.

 **CASTELLANOS :** I see.

 

Sebastian lets his limbs to limp, his head hang back. He sighs.

The truth.

The truth.

He doesn't know if he really wanted to know it.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** When did she join the organization ?

 **sn1tch :** may 2001.

 **sn1tch :** she was quite young, but very determined.

 **sn1tch :** she probably had heard of them before as the influential and powerful organization shown to the public, but I don't know how she discovered their darker works.

 **CASTELLANOS :** Are you sure she actually knew about the fucked-up things when she joined ?

 **sn1tch :** yes, she did.

 **sn1tch :** i remember what she told the boss, i was here.

 **sn1tch :** there was something wicked in her. her posture, her voice, her smile, everything.

 **sn1tch :** she said, in a secretive but determined voice “i heard about your works. i find them very interesting, and i was wondering if i could help you, and how.”

 **sn1tch :** she and the boss shared that creepy smile that creepy people have when they think of creepy things.

 **sn1tch :** the boss seemed to like her right away

 **sn1tch :** he gave her positions of responsibilities

 **sn1tch :** gave her subordinates

 **sn1tch :** he made her a young queen of a fucked-up kingdom

 

Sebastian sighs, and sighs, and sighs.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Why would she do that ?

 **CASTELLANOS :** Why would she join an organization that makes fucked-up experiments on people, that kills and tortures to create monsters to gain access to power ?

 **sn1tch :** some people are like that.

 **sn1tch :** power-thirsty, blinded by the will to control.

 **sn1tch :** it's hard to change them.

 **sn1tch :** there was always people like that, and there will always be.

 **sn1tch :** it's in the human nature.

 **sn1tch :** i know it sounds cliché and all, but the worse monsters walk among us.

 **sn1tch :** and sometimes we even fall in love with them.

 

Sebastian has given up. There's this devouring emptiness cannibalizing itself in his chest and stomach. He can't feel a thing anymore.

His wife is a monster.

 _Ex_ -wife is a monster.

Divorce seems necessary, he thinks, a bitter laugh at the thought of such a mundane thing. Or maybe they don't need it ? It kind of settled itself in tears and nightmares.

Sebastian wants to cry a little more, cry for his dead, his _expendable_ daughter, the innocent victim of power-thirsty, suit-wearing monsters.

A last question linger in his mind.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** How can you know so much ? Not only about me, but about them ? Who are you ?

 **sn1tch :** until a few weeks back, i didn’t know that much.

 **sn1tch :** i didn’t even know you were married, let alone to /her/

 **sn1tch :** i uncovered, discovered, put the pieces together

 **sn1tch :** i learned it all the hard way

 **sn1tch :** well, maybe not that hard, compared to you.

 **sn1tch :** and, sebastian, i've been trained to lie. live a double-life.

 **sn1tch :** constantly hide half of me in the shadow.

 **CASTELLANOS** : You didn't answer my question. Who are you ?

 **sn1tch :** you know me, sebastian.

 

Sebastian's heart jumps in his throat.

_What ? Who ?_

Clues, he thinks. Hidden clues. He's a detective after all.

His eyes start frenetically searching for clues.

“snitchj”. J ?

He chokes on air. _Joseph ?_

_No, no._

“snitch87”. The classic use of the last numbers of the date of birth in usernames or email addresses. “87”. It can't be Joseph, he was born in 1981. 1981 to 1987, that's a six years difference, thirty-three minus six, that's...

Twenty-seven.

Who is twenty-seven, whose name begins with a J, who knows Sebastian ?

Kidman.

Kidman, Kidman, Kidman.

 

 **CASTELLANOS :** Kidman, is that you ?!

 **CASTELLANOS :** KIDMAN !

 **CASTELLANOS :** ANSWER ME, GODDAMMIT !

 **CASTELLANOS :** KIDMAN !!!

 

The black window disappears.

Sebastian freezes in shock.

 

 

 


	5. Pieces of a Man.

_It's over_ , he thinks, _it's over._  
The truth ran over him like a truck, and now he can try to relax.  
_Relax, relax, relax._  
His wife commanded his daughter to be killed.  
He starts screaming again.  
Sebastian jumps from his seat and throws himself against the wall, once, twice, until the burn of the hit inflames his whole side. He runs to the other side of the room and punches the window that breaks under his fist.

“Oh shit !" he yelps as glass shatters at his feet.

He realizes there are shards piercing through the skin of his hand.  
_Oh shit oh shit oh shit_  
He trips on his own feet and hits the ground in a loud thud. He pushes his back to the wall and curls on himself, holding his wounded hand with the other. He starts crying again.  
_I'm so fucking pitiful._  
He hiccups and chokes on his own saliva before letting out a low, pained whine. It hurts. Everything hurts. The room is dark, his phone aggressively buzzing and flashing its white light, and Sebastian wouldn't be surprised if more monsters merged out of the darkest corners.  
He even hopes they would, he wants to be so freaked out he forgets the truth, he wants to be scared shitless so he doesn't think, but no creature comes out of the dark and it's the first time Sebastian is angry being alone.  
He doesn't hear the footsteps approaching but, the next second, yellow light is blinding him, forcing him to close his eyes before his eyeballs burn, and Joseph is standing in the door frame, hand on the switch.

 

“Sebastian !" he calls loudly, panic sending trembles in his throat, before running to his partner.

Joseph crouches next to the crying man and puts his gloved hands on his shoulders to shake him.

“Hey ! Hey, Sebastian, what's wrong ?”

Someone knocks at the door.  
Joseph uses his body to shield Sebastian, arms outstretched so the invader doesn't see his partner in that state.

“Get out !" he snaps at the man standing in the door frame.

The confused guy shrugs and steps back. Joseph stands up and runs to the door, locking it, and comes back to his crying partner.  
Joseph kneels besides Sebastian and takes the older man's face in his hand, trying to look at him in the eyes.

“Sebastian, Sebastian, tell me, what happened ?”

Sebastian sucks in shaky breaths, sniffles and tries to find Joseph's eyes through his water-clogged eyelashes.

“Myra is with them, Joseph,” he hiccups.  
“Myra...? What ? What are you talking about, Sebastian ?”

Sebastian stretches his arm, pointing at the opened email on the screen.  
Joseph lets go of his partner's face and walks to the computer.  
His dark eyes run over the few words, he opens the files and looks. Sebastian can see Joseph's face going pale, his eyes widening. He turns back to the older detective with a confused look.

“Seb ? I don't really understand...”

Sebastian lets out a shaky laugh and pats the space besides him, inviting Joseph to sit on the floor with him. The younger man comes back to crouch near his partner.

“Okay,” Sebastian begins with a sigh. “Okay. So you know, the hell we've been through ?”

Joseph nods. Of course he knows.

“Well, we were put in there by an organization that basically wants the power over humanity by using the machine we were plugged to, you're following ?”

Joseph nods again.

“So, very bad organization, very powerful, rich, influential. We've seen that their preferred targets where mentally ill people, because I guess they're easier to control, but they want everyone. They want us too.”

He takes a deep breath. The bad part is coming and tears are already running back up to his eyes.

“When they discovered I would take care of the Elk River murders case, which they're behind, they sent someone to distract me.”  
“What ? Who ?" Joseph asks.

Sebastian bites the inside of his cheek. Hard.  
Come on, come on, spit it out, you'll feel better afterwards.  
He articulates the word, the letters burning his tongue.

“Myra.”

Joseph stills. Sebastian bites on his bottom lip, trying to swallow back a sob. The other man's mouth falls slightly open in shock.

“W... What ?”

A wail breaks through Sebastian's lips and he convulses onward, his hands gripping at his chest to rip the pain away.

“Myra was with them all along, Myra was one of them, she worked with them, she faked her life with me, she saw us as nothing but pawns and, and – “

He takes a long, long breath to try to put out the fire clawing at his chest.

“ – and she ordered to kill Lily,” he bawls as Joseph watches him, livid, “she made sure they killed Lily so I would go mad, she killed her, she killed her,” Sebastian starts echoing and Joseph grabs his shoulders to shake him, as if trying to pull him out of a nightmare.  
“Why ?” he asks, shocked, “why would she do that ?”  
“Because crazy people are easier to manipulate,” Sebastian spits with a distorted smile, “because when someone seeks the truth you can bait them with it, you can lure them with what they lost”, Sebastian cries as he shakes his head, trying to dislocate the thoughts off his mind.  
“But... but why ? Why would she do that ? Lily was her daughter too !" Joseph exclaims.

Sebastian chokes in another teary breath.

“She was like all of them, power-thirsty, blinded by the will to control,” he whines in pain, “everyone that wasn't her or a member of her organization was expendable, and that's what Lily was.”

When he finishes his sentence, Sebastian lets his head fall forward in misery, tears streaming down his cheeks and splashing his crossed legs.  
Joseph's fingers are digging into the flesh of his arms, as if holding him tighter would console him.

“Sebastian... who told you that ?”  
“A sneak,” he sniffles. “An informant. A snitch.”  
“When ? How ?”  
“Not ten minutes ago. They kinda broke into the department's network, then into my computer. They opened a window like a terminal and we chatted here. They also send emails with pictures and videos,” he explains, voice croaking.  
“Do you know who they were ?”

Sebastian doesn't answer. Then, slowly, he lifts his gaze to Joseph's eyes. The other man seems uneasy.

“Kidman.”

Joseph's face decomposes. His eyes widen, his mouth falls open. He blinks multiple times. His lips move, he's trying to speak but too shocked to.

“No...” he finally croaks.

Sebastian shakes his head.

“Oh fuck,” Joseph whispers.

They both stand silent, Joseph astonished and Sebastian empty. Joseph's hands haven't left his partner's shoulder, but his fingers have relaxed.  
Sebastian sniffles. He feels like he has cried everything he could. Now he's empty, empty, empty. He lifts one hand to put on Joseph's arm. His partner will probably need to cry too – hadn't he a crush on Kidman some time ago ? Even if he hadn't, the two of them were close. He probably feels betrayed as well.  
Eventually, Joseph snaps out of his shocked trance.

“Emails, right ?" he asks.  
“Yeah ?" mutters Sebastian, still a little groggy.

Joseph jumps on his feet and runs to the computer.  
He opens the three emails and his eyes start running like race horses on the screen.

“Do you think they were sent from Beacon ?" he asks.  
“I don't... I don't know ? Maybe ?”  
“Do you remember seeing computers when you were in the hospital ?”  
“Uh, well, when I woke up there were monitors but they only seemed to be here to watch vital signs...”  
“Maybe these emails were sent from somewhere else. If we can find more information about their provenance, they could lead us to Kidman and the rest...”

Joseph seems thrilled and worked up about his potential future discoveries.

“We should go ask someone from the informatics department to try and track them from the IP address, and we should also see if we can know what kind of material they used to break into your computer. I'll call someone on that.”

Then, he's running out of the room and into the corridor.

 

Joseph comes back twenty seconds later with Dunn, who is said to be a hacker in her free time. When she and Joseph storm into the office, they're already in deep conversation. Sebastian can't make up much of what they're saying, because the void in his chest is now ringing between his ears, but he sees his partner point at the screen, show the emails, and speak and speak as Dunn nods and nods. They're quickly done talking and Joseph gives a soft slap on her back before watching her storm out.

When the agitation stops, Sebastian looks at his partner again.  
Joseph is sighing, shoulder rising and falling, his fists clutching. He nods in resolution before kneeling back next to his partner.

“Are you okay ?” he asks in a soft voice. “Can you get up ?”

Sebastian shrugs. He feels like his blood has morphed into plumb, and misery is weighing his limbs.  
Joseph takes off his long black coat and puts it on his partner's shoulders. Then, he holds his hand out for Sebastian to take.

“I don't know how much time Andrea will need to track the IP address, but in the meantime you could use warm water on your face, we need to take care of your cuts, and you need a cup of something hot,” he adds, an empathetic smile on his lips.

There's still a deep sorrow in his eyes, but he seems to try to hide it from his partner.  
Sebastian takes the offered hand and Joseph helps him up. Once they're sure the man can stand on his feet, Joseph leads him to the restroom without letting go of the large warm palm.

 

Sebastian let go of Joseph's hand and is standing against one of the sinks. Sadness is pulling his silhouette down – his shoulders, head and arms are hanging heavy as if gravity was crushing them. Joseph pulled out a tissue from the packet in his pocket and is waiting for the water pouring from the faucet to warm up. Eventually, he puts the folded tissue under the water and let it soak. He then comes to Sebastian's side. He wordlessly asks for his partner to give him his hand to nurse. Reluctantly, the man raises his hand and puts it in Joseph's palm, who begins to gently wipe the blood off the skin and rub the wound. The warm water feels nice on Sebastian's skin, and Joseph's caring too. Sebastian feels incredibly weary, empty, and dizzy after so many emotions, and Joseph's closeness, his silence, the gentleness of his moves, everything feels soft and tender. This man will not leave him, and if Sebastian still had a little energy left, he would thank him.

When Sebastian's wound is clean, Joseph throws the tissue in the nearby bin and looks at his partner.  
“We're going to the locker room and taking a bandage in the medicine cabinet. Then, we'll go to the break room and get you something to drink,” Joseph explains in a calm, soft voice, as if describing every step of his plan would help Sebastian calm down.

Sebastian nods.  
He opens his mouth to say “thank you”, but only air makes it past his lips. Joseph still reads the words on his lips, and says “no problem”. He encourages Sebastian to straighten up, square his shoulders and lift his chin so their colleagues don't approach them to pity-talk.

 

Joseph gently wraps a white bandage around Sebastian's hand. The fabric feels soft and cottony, and it makes the man think of a piece of cloud on his wound. Adding bandage tape to the cloth to help it stay on, Joseph peeks at his partner's face from above his glasses. Sebastian looks wrecked. His eyes are red and a crimson hue is circling his eyes, painting his nose and lips ; he's breathing through his mouth and sometimes sniffles ; his amber eyes look darker than usual under the curtain of his wet lashes.  
Joseph gently rubs Sebastian's hurt hand to indicate he's done nursing the wound and his partner follows him out of the locker room.

 

The latest rumor – or rather : truth – seems to have propagated in the whole department like an insidious black smoke. Everyone have their eyes on the two men, eyebrows raised in pity.  
“Poor detective... Poor sir Castellanos... Poor Sebastian”, the walls and furniture murmur.  
People watch them, all trying to get closer but always respecting a distance, almost as if they were scared – scared of what ? It wasn't Sebastian who was terrifying.  
In the break room, the few officers drinking their coffee move away as Sebastian walks in, similar to seawater as Moses passed by.  
Sebastian follows Joseph to the drink machine as questions and pity are written over their colleagues' faces.

“What do you want,” Joseph asks softly. “Coffee ? Tea ? Chocolate ?”

Sebastian knows that, in normal times, Joseph would have known that he wanted a coffee.  
But now isn't “normal times”.

“Uh... Tea. I'll have a tea. Please.”

Joseph nods and orders the drink on the machine. Sebastian walks, dragging his limbs, to one of the chair, and let himself fall in it.

There's a strange silence in the department, a silence almost respectful but boiling with questions.  
Joseph brings his partner his cup of tea, warning him of the heat as the drink passes from one hand to the other.  
A glimpse of ginger hair catches Sebastian's attention.  
The Chief is standing in the doorway. Her hands deep in her pockets, she looks at Sebastian with brown eyes painted with a lot of concern, a little of sadness and the bitterness of having been betrayed.  
She walks in the room and the whole department seems to be behind her, observing the scene and the pathetic man drinking his tea from behind the windows.

“Castellanos,” she says in a voice Sebastian can feel she struggles to keep calm.

Sebastian lifts his head and try to look at her.  
She sighs.

“Castellanos, I am... so, so sorry for what happened to you. I would never have thought that Hanson had dark motives, but I cannot believe I didn't see what was going on.”  
“It's not your fault, Chief,” Sebastian manages to croak.  
“It may not be, but because of my inability to check Hanson's background with enough caution, you found yourself in the worst situation I could possibly imagine.”

Sebastian lets out a little shaky laugh.

“We see in our work people trapped in underground trafficking rings, other tortured and left for dead, I think I'm fine,” he tries to joke.

All eyes are on him and everyone looks terrified.  
_Good fucking job Castellanos._

“Hum... I mean, surely some people can have it worse than you,” Chief says as she looks at Sebastian as if there was guts on his face, “but as a, y'know, human being, living man, you have it quite bad. I mean. Yeah.”

Everyone looks embarrassed. Sebastian takes a big boiling sip of tea to shut himself up.

“I doubt you could have found anything fishy with Myra,” Sebastian finally says, his wife's – ex-wife, ex ex ex ex – name burning his tongue worse than the hot drink, “if she was able to fake her love for me and Lily and kill our own daughter, she probably was able to hide everything weird she'd done in her life to get closer to me.”

Sebastian sighs and sinks deeper in his chair. “Our own daughter” ties a strong knot in his throat and he tries to swallow it with a gulp of tea.

“It wasn't your fault,” Sebastian repeats.  
“It's not yours either,” the Chief adds, her voice soft and compassionate.

Sebastian vaguely nods, nose buried in his cup.  
Chief lets out a long sigh, knowing she wouldn't get more out of her detective, and leaves.  
Behind her was standing Dunn.

Joseph looked up from his partner and walked to his colleague.

“So ?" he asked, trying to contain his impatience. “Have you found anything ?”

His enthusiasm dropped dead to the ground when he saw Andrea's raised eyebrows and her apologetic look.

“No,” she admitted. “No matter how I try to approach it, I can't find anything,” she sighs. “Like, there definitively was someone using it not long ago, but all my programs say it hasn't been used since 2010. And I can't seem to track the IP address either.”  
“How come ?”  
“There seems to be some kind of program who blocks anyone who isn't from their network to interact in any way with them,” Andrea sighs, shaking her head.

Joseph and Sebastian stay in silence, observing their colleague.

“I'm sorry,” Andrea blurts out at their uncomfortable silence, “I can't do better than this !”

The two men exchange a long glance. Sebastian shrugs. Joseph sighs.

“It's not your fault,” he finally says, soft and compassionate. “They probably have a lot of complicated, high-tech material to work with.”  
“I'm sorry I couldn't be useful,” Dunn huffs.  
“It's okay,” Sebastian interrupts. “Don't beat yourself over it. You did the best you could.”

Andrea nods but the two men can see she's disappointed in herself. She bites her lips and walks away, her clenched fists at her sides.  
Joseph and Sebastian are left in the warm silence of disappearing voices. People have walked away from the room when the Chief and Andrea left, and Castellanos can enjoy his tea in peace. It's lukewarm now.  
Joseph sighs.

“You know,” Sebastian begins, Joseph turning his head to him, “I think we should get back to Beacon. Begin our search here. We would probably find some answers here.”

Joseph nods, but his brows are raised in – what, fear ?  
One of his gloved hands starts rubbing his arm.

“You know, I'm not... really excited to go back there.”  
“Me neither,” Sebastian sighs. “Me neither..."

 

The Chief reappears in the door frame, one of her hand on her hip and the other on the wall to support her weight.

“Castellanos, I'm sending you back home. You had enough for today, you need to rest and have some time to process.”  
“That's a preferential treatment, Chief,” Sebastian tries to chaff.

The Chief lets out a long sigh.

“Castellanos, you just learned that your wife and the shady organization she is with are behind your daughter's death and your latest and newest descents to hell, you need to rest,” she asserts.

Sebastian's eye twitch, his breath hitches, tears wet his red eyes and Chief internally curses herself.

“Shit – I'm sorry, I just mean today's been exhausting, and all these revelations are not casual or mundane, they're revelations about what has been haunting you since Lily died and Hanson disappeared.”

Sebastian bites the inside of his cheek. Drops of what is left of his tea threaten to jump out of his cup, shaken by his trembling hands.

“You need to go home,” the Chief insists, her fist slightly banging on the wall, “you need to think about everything after a good sleep, and see what you want to do next with a clear head.”

Sebastian nods weakly.  
Yeah, sleep.  
He wishes he could just sleep forever, forget everything and never think of it again.

The Chief hails Joseph with a move of her head.

“Oda, I'm asking you to make sure he gets home safely.”  
“Will do, Chief.”

The woman looks at her two subordinates with a strange mix of worry and compassion and, with a solemn nod, walks away.  
Sebastian sips the last of his drink. Joseph rests a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“Let's go,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper.

When walking to their car, Joseph's hand supporting his arm as if it was a paper limb threatening to fall, Sebastian wonders if the Chief knows that he and his partner are living together.

 

Sebastian started crying again in the car. Hiccups and sobs agitating his chest, jumping in his throat, he desperately tries to silence himself, cursing and slurring as Joseph tries to calm him with a gloved hand on his thigh.

“ _Fucking weak ass pathetic fuck stop fucking crying what the fuck is wrong with you stop for Christ's sake oh my god_ –“

Sebastian swears quite often. A little “fuck” here and there, and classy “shit” now and then.  
But this is a new level of slurring.  
The whole ride has his self-depreciating insults as a background noise, and Joseph has given up in calming his partner down, when Sebastian breaks down crying, his whole silhouette cowering, chin hitting his chest and tears wetting the front of his shirt.  
Joseph has to pull the car over and unbuckle himself to pull Sebastian in a tight embrace. The older man's arms loop around his partner's and his head fall limply on one of Joseph's shoulder.  
Sebastian cries for five whole minutes, aware that his partner is receiving tears and a little drool on his vest, as Joseph softly pats his hair and whispers reassurances. The older man hiccups and coughs and whines like a wounded dog before every emotion leaves his body, leaving him one more time hollow and bare. He finally weakly pulls away from the embrace, tears and drool coating his partner’s vest and his own chin, quite embarrassed.

“I ruined your vest, I'm sorry,” he snuffles.  
“I'll wash it at home,” Joseph shrugs as he sits back behind the wheel. “Will you be okay ?” he asks.  
“I'll manage,” Sebastian answers, quieter and smaller sobs shaking him.

Joseph restarts the car and drives them home, Sebastian trying to clean his vest with a paper tissue.

 

Sebastian tries to drag his pitiful weight of a body to the front door, but Joseph has to keep a hand between his partner's shoulder blades so he doesn't let himself fall miserably on the asphalt. Joseph gently pushes his partner to the elevator, then to their door, and when he opens their apartment Sebastian stumbles into it, weakly walks three drunk man steps before letting his sad carcass drop on the tiled floor.

“Hey, hey, Seb,” Joseph calls him as he crouches next to him in order to pull him up, “stand up, stand up, you should go sit on the couch or on the bed, you can't stay here,” he asserts.

But he can use all of his strength to try to get his partner up, Sebastian doesn't move, his sadness and numbness seeming to have changed his flesh in marble and his blood in plumb.  
Sebastian lets out a pathetic little whine as Joseph shakes him by the shoulder, but he only curls up on himself more.  
Joseph sighs and abandons his idea to pull the older man on his feet.

“You can't stay in the hallway,” he tries to reason his partner, “you'll catch a cold if you stay on the tiles. At least move onto the rug in the living room,” he attempts to compromise.

Sebastian looks at him with tired eyes.

“Can't move,” he says.

His partner sighs.

“You still can't stay here.”  
“Pull me,” Sebastian says.

And, under Joseph's puzzled gaze, he lifts one of his legs.  
The younger man looks at him wide-eyed and, as realization dawns upon him, sighs.

“Sebastian...”  
“Come on,” the other man insists. “You used to pull me like this to my room when I was piss-drunk and trying to sleep on the floor.”

Joseph sighs again and, shrugging and giving in, holds Sebastian's offered leg at the ankle to start dragging him to the living room.  
Sebastian hums and chuckles.

“I feel like a corpse being dragged to a dumpster,” he almost laughs.

Joseph laughs with him, even if the comparison makes his hair stand on his nape. He drags his partner’s body into the living room and rolls him onto the soft, thick carpet between the sofa and the TV.

“Alright,” Joseph puffs, exhausted after pulling his partner’s weight, “what do we do now ?”

Sebastian rolls on his side, curls a little on himself and slides one his hands between the rug and his head. His lips are twitching – he is trying to swallow back a long, loud whine of a hurt beast.

“I don’t know,” he whispers, his voice barely loud enough for Joseph to hear the crack in it. “I don’t know,” he repeats.

Joseph hesitates, bites his lips, rearranges his tie. He decides to kneel next to his partner, and puts a gloved hand on Sebastian’s trembling shoulder.

“Hey.”

He stays silent a few seconds, awkwardly searching for something to say.

“I’m ordering Indian food. Just take it easy.”

Sebastian sniffles and nods. Joseph stands up, walks to the kitchen, finds the restaurant’s pamphlet and pulls his phone of his pocket.

 

Sebastian barely ate. He took two bites of chicken and, face grey, eyes blank, told Joseph in a low and throaty voice that he was too tired. He disappeared in the corridor, his silhouette bending like a reed crushed by a storm.  
When Joseph joined him later, he found his partner curled on himself, smaller than he ever looked. His face was buried in the pillow and he didn’t bother to change into something more comfortable.  
The detective sighed and took one of his gloves off, carefully, finger by finger. He clenched and unclenched his fist, observing the ligaments and veins on his wrist.  
Slowly, he stretched out his arm and, in a very soft gesture, brushed a lock, glued to the skin with tears, off Sebastian’s face. The older man made a low, hurt, pathetic sound, and buried his head deeper into the cushion.

 

Joseph wakes up, feeling cold and naked. He opens his eyes, blurry dots dancing under his lashes, to realize Sebastian is not in his arms anymore.  
He rises on his elbows as panic bubbles in his chest like a viscid, black potion made by a witch.  
He grabs his glasses and adjusts them on his nose, mechanically puts on his gloves and jumps out of bed.  
He reels a little, still dizzy with sleep, and runs out of the room.  
He sees a very low light coming from the kitchen or living room, and he rushes there, the ominous and unsettling feeling riding up his trachea and balling in his throat.  
**The knives ? The knives ? The knives ?**  
He has to tell himself to shut up, shaking his head to dislodge the thought.  
He doesn’t want to think about that.  
He burst into the kitchen, turns the lights on – and momentarily blinds himself in the process – to finally find his partner.

Sebastian is sprawled on the floor, his whole body shaking, fat tears cascading down his face as a throaty, aching, animalistic sound spills out of his twitching mouth. Joseph observes him as he approaches, carefully, as if encountering a hurt beast. He notices, in one of his partner’s hands, a pair of scissors.  
_Oh no. Oh no. Oh no._  
His heart jumps up his oesophagus, almost fall out of his mouth, but he swallows it back at the last moment, and now feels his heartbeat in his dry lips.

“Sebastian…?”

He looks around the pained man and sees, between his spread legs, the picture he got back from his apartment. Tiny pieces of it are staggered all around Sebastian like paper snowflakes.  
Joseph crouches near his partner, carefully, and puts his hand on his shoulder – a gesture he does often, always to try to calm the older man, to ground him, to reassure him. Sebastian winces at the touch.  
He had cut out Myra’s face.  
With coarse snips, he nicked his wife’s – _ex, ex, ex wife_ – visage out of the picture.  
It looks like a raw wound on the paper.  
The remaining of the photograph is coated in tears and fading off.

Joseph softly shakes him. He feels so bad, so sad for his partner, and something – guilt ? – is weighing heavy on his shoulders. He wants to console him, to comfort him, he wants to do something.  
So, slowly, he pulls the scissors out of Sebastian’s hand. The older man’s fingers fall back, limp like a fresh corpse’s, on his knee. His head is hanging low, eyes red with so, so many tears, and he’s still softly whining like a wounded creature.  
_I’m not getting him back in the bed, am I_ , Joseph thinks.  
He gently pushes Sebastian onto the thick carpet, holding and cradling him as the older man lets himself fall on the rug.

“Wait here,” Joseph orders, and he gets up and disappears.

He’s back a few seconds later with their pillows and the blanket. Sebastian lets out a silent laugh, his smile nonetheless falling back into a thin line not a second later.  
Joseph arranges the pillows under Sebastian’s head, puts his just next to it, and starts adjusting the blanket on the ground. When he is satisfied with his arrangement, he goes to turn the light off.  
He comes back to Sebastian, feet light and silent on the floor.

“We’re like two teenagers having a sleepover,” he chuckles, and Sebastian imitates him.

They try to find a comfortable position.  
The clock seems to tick incredibly slow and silent, like shy, as if it didn’t want to disturb the two men’s intimacy.

 

A few minutes later, Sebastian is crying again. He is clamping and crumpling the picture against his chest, trying to feed his broken heart the angelic face of his daughter. His body is agitated by spasms, he wheezes, coughs, cries out.  
There is something in his chest tightening like a knot of barbed wire, metallic, cold, stinging, something with spikes that cut his guts and threaten to pierce his skin. The dressed wounds in his mind reopened and are spurting pus and memories, letting the foul smell of smoke turn his insides into ashes.  
His teeth are clashing, his jaw hurts from trying to hold the screams in.  
Joseph rises on his elbows and, with utter caution and gentleness, slides an arm under his partner’s back as the other holds him by the shoulder. Joseph cradles Sebastian, like the other man usually do.  
His mind is fuzzy, he’s exhausted, the room is dark and the world quiet. Everything seems to have stopped moving, just for the two of them to breathe.  
Sebastian tries to give his partner a thankful smile. Joseph returns it.  
One of his hands comes to pat the older man’s hair.

The two men seem to exist, to breathe now, out of time, in absolute silence, the universe observing a reverent lull as Sebastian hurts.  
Quiescence cradles them, like Joseph cradles his partner, and the penumbra, unthreatening, folds them into her purple coat.  
They’re left suspended in time like two acrobats, the world a blind public at their feet.

“You will feel better tomorrow,” Joseph says, his voice a whisper, careful not to shatter the glass-fragile moment.  
“I hope,” Sebastian croaks. The instant quivers but does not break.

Joseph brushes a lonely tear off Sebastian’s skin.

“Joseph ?”  
“Mmh ?”  
“Thank you.”

 

 

 


	6. The Traitor II.

Sebastian insisted to go back to work the next day. His limbs still heavy with shock and three hours of sleep, groggy and tottering, he pulled Joseph in the car with him, sat his partner behind the wheel and ordered to be taken to the KCPD. Joseph complied, wondering what kind of idea Sebastian had in mind.

 

Joseph barely parked the car, and Sebastian is already busting out of the habitacle, as if powered by caffeine, and hops up the stairs to the police station.

He pushes the door open and erupts in the office under his colleagues’ dumbfounded gazes. He’s blaring, steps heavy, and salutes as loud as a foghorn everyone who crosses his path. 

 

“Hello ! Hello ! Hi ! ‘Morning !”

 

Joseph follows him, as surprised as the others, and tails him as everyone throws him interrogating glances. He just shrugs and shakes his head.

The Chief, alerted by the unusual hubbub, passes her head through her gaping door.

 

“Hey, what is –”

 

Sebastian passes by her, greeting her as noisily as the others, and almost runs to his office.

 

“Castellanos ! You’re not supposed to be here !" the Chief calls him in a stentorian voice.

“I’m not staying long !" the detective answers, as he storms into his workroom. 

 

Joseph has rushed to him, just in time to see him rip off the first paper from the wall.

Sebastian’s large, tanned hand slaps onto one of Mrs Hanson’s ‘missing person’ poster in a flat sound. The pins that held it up come undone as he tears it down. His fingers dig into the affiche. Under his phalanges, the sheet wrinkles and crumples. Myra’s face disappears, crushed under the man’s hand, in sharp folds of dry paper. Sebastian’s fists clutch around the now-balled sheet and he clenches them harder, creasing it until it doesn’t look like anything anymore, his palms guzzling the black-and-white visage his ex-wife wore. 

Sebastian throws the paper in an empty bin and, a cold and muffled rage pumped in his veins, drumming between his ears, he tears off every single of these posters he finds in his office. 

When he is done, he raids the entire station, hustling everyone who finds themselves in his path. 

His head is throbbing, he doesn’t even hear himself blurting out apologies to the people he knocks over. He totters, staggers against furniture, feels tears welling in his trachea and threatening to spill out if he opens his mouth, so he runs, he runs through the whole department under everyone’s bewildered gaze. 

Soon, Mrs Hanson has disappeared from the building. She’s folded up in paper balls and laying in the bottom of a bin. 

 

Sebastian brought all the rumpled posters to the parking lot. He also gathered dry wood, rocks that he disposed in a circle, gasoline, and stole a lighter from an officer.

Joseph is opening the door to meet him, pure confusion written on his back, dripping through the deep interrogating wrinkles between his brows. 

 

“What are you doing ?" he asks, even though he knows damn well what he’s partner is about.

 

Sebastian pours fuel on the papers. He crouches and, in a sharp and expert gesture, make the lighter spit his blue flame for the first time in so many weeks. 

The fire, born faster than a lightning strike, starts devouring, edacious, gluttonous, the parts of Sebastian’s past that were glued to his throat like viscid ghoul hands.

The burning teeth of the blaze tear Hanson’s skin apart, ingesting her pixelated flesh, gobbling her clothes of ink. 

Myra dies in the fire, just like sweet, ‘expendable’ little Lily did.

 

The man, his fingers clutched around the lighter, watches his ex-wife agonize at his feet. He stares at the flames as she disappears into inferno. 

Quickly enough, his gaze blurries, damps, and soon he is crying again. His pain is muffled, silent, and so are his sobs. His free hand comes to grasp at his shirt, just at his heart. If he could see himself, he’d say this is cliché, but there’s something heavy, aching, numbing in his chest, and it’s spreading like an infectious disease. 

Joseph approaches him, carefully. Puts a gloved hand between his shoulder blades. 

 

“Hey…”

 

Sebastian aggressively wipes out his tears with his sleeve. He holds the lighter for Joseph to take.

 

“Can you give that back to Almanza ?”

 

His voice tries to be measured, flat. Not hinting at his despair.

Joseph nods and takes it.

 

“Can I ask you one more thing ?" Sebastian asks, his eyes not able to look away from the blaze.

“Sure.”

“Save yesterday’s emails to the main database. Copy the pictures and videos too. And then, delete them from my computer.”

 

Making a clean sweep, while keeping records of criminal activity. Professional. 

 

“I will,” Joseph nods. His voice is soft, calm.

 

With a light, gentle pat on Sebastian’s back, he’s back into the building.

  
  


The fire died out, Sebastian memories didn’t. He knew they wouldn’t,  _ of course _ they wouldn’t, but still, he had hope.

_ That was unnecessary _ , he thinks.

Too theatral, maybe. Too dramatic.

Dramatic but cathartic.

He shrugs.

_ Well, at least, I’m done with that. _

 

Everyone is still watching him when he gets back inside. He tries to force smiles at everyone he sees, but his lips only twitch in a weird way, making him look uncomfortable.

The Chief blocks his path. She has her hands on her hips. Her eyes are stern, lips shut in a thin line. 

 

“Are you done ?" she asks, voice tight and taut. “Is it done ?”

 

Sebastian doesn’t get the hint of sarcasm in her voice and he only nods, looking slightly dizzy.

 

“Yeah,” he says under his breath. “Yeah.”

 

He looks at the Chief, the Chief looks at him, and they both stand in silence, as if waiting for the other to step aside and let them walk.

 

“Sebastian !" Joseph’s voice calls from his office.

“Yeah ?”

“Come see…”

 

Joseph’s voice quavers, and Sebastian feels nervousness crawl up his chest as he hears the fear in it. He runs to his workroom, not really sure of what he would find but scared,  _ scared _ , terror is bubbling up in his guts, a reflex learned from their hell.

The bust the door open to see Joseph, face pale, eyes wide, standing in front of the computer.

He quickly joins him to see what alarms him like this.

The same, haunting black window for the day before is opened on the screen. Someone had typed.

 

**sn!Tch :** Mr Castellanos ?

**sn!Tch :** If you’re here, please respond.

 

Sebastian shakingly pushes Joseph asides, careful not be too rough, and sits at his desk.

 

**CASTELLANOS :** Kidman ? Is that you ?

**sn!Tch :** Thank God you’re here. And no, it’s not.

**CASTELLANOS :** Then who is it ?

**sn!Tch :** I’m very proud of you for sitting through yesterday’s revelations. I know you must be hurt and shocked, but I think I still need to talk to you.

**CASTELLANOS :** Are you with her ?

**CASTELLANOS :** With Kid ?

**sn!Tch :** Yeah. We work together.

**CASTELLANOS :** So you’re also with them, huh. 

**CASTELLANOS :** With that organization.

**sn!Tch :** I am. And I wish I wasn’t.

**CASTELLANOS :** Tell me who you are.

**sn!Tch :** I need to talk to you. In person. I believe it would be best for what I want to say.

**sn!Tch :** Meet me today, at 11:30am, at the Krimson Roses Dinner.

**CASTELLANOS :** How do I know I can trust you ?

**sn!Tch :** I guess you really dont…

**sn!Tch :** If it reassures you, you can bring your gun. I won’t be armed.

**sn!Tch :** You can bring someone else, too.

**sn!Tch :** I’ll have a red ribbon in my hair and a navy blue suit.

 

Sebastian and Joseph look anxiously at each other.

 

**CASTELLANOS :** I still don’t know who you are.

**sn!Tch :** You’ll recognize me when you see me.

**sn!Tch :** See you later, sir.

 

And, just like that, the window disappears from the screen. 

The two men, who had been holding their breaths during the conversation, exhale deeply, letting their nervousness out.

 

“Do you have any idea of who it could be ?" Joseph asks.

“Not at all,” answers Sebastian as he stands up.

 

The younger man glances at the clock. 

 

“It’s 9:45,” he announces. “You still have some time before you two rendezvous.”

 

Sebastian nods. He scratches his neck in disbelief, shrugs, sighs.

 

“I don’t have much choice, do I ?" he asks himself out loud.

 

At this moment, the Chief irrupts in his office. 

 

“Why are the two of you still here ? Get out before I kick your asses out !”

 

She’s only half-joking, and the two men rush to their car as the woman runs after them. The offset with their previous states of mind – poignant heartache like a chest burn, then the creeping, sharp dread of talking to a ghost – takes them so off-guard they start laughing.

They’re still hiccuping and snorting when Joseph sits behind the wheel.

 

“So… what do we do until 11:30 ?" Joseph asks when he can articulate his thoughts without chuckling.

“Uh, well we could… go grocery shopping ? For today’s diner ? And maybe find a bar to wait in and have a drink ?" Sebastian suggests as Joseph drives out of the parking lot.

“Sounds good. Maybe the bar in the same street as the Krimson Roses ?”

“Why not ?”

 

The thought of spending some time with Joseph, away from the memories of his wife, the ill-fated emails, the sinister black window on his computer screen, sounds incredibly appealing.

 

“Do you think they’ve got plum liqueur at the bar ?”

  
  
  


11:28.

Sebastian takes a deep, deep breath.

 

“Okay,” he huffs.

“Okay,” Joseph encourages, nodding.

 

Sebastian points the cash register. 

 

“I’ll just –”

“No,” Joseph interrupts him with a hand, “Leave it. I’ll pay. Go.”

 

Sebastian acquiesces and stands up. 

Slowly, methodically, he puts his coat back on and steps towards the door. As if trying to delay the inevitable, he walks unhurriedly, feeling the floor under his soles, each of the people moving around him. He pushes the door with an excruciating tardiness, and steps in the street. 

He stays still, feeling the wind biting his skin and the anxiety gnawing at his insides, before gathering up courage and crossing the street. 

 

The walk from one sidewalk to the other feels unbearably long, and his thoughts are racing like doped horses with too many legs.

Who is he meeting with ?

**Myra ? Myra ? Myra ?**

He shakes his head. Why would it be her ? She betrayed him, the whole police department, and even more.

Maybe she would try to lie her way out ?

**Myra ? Myra ? Myra ?**

Her face, the same he just burned in twenty exemplaries, haunts him. 

And her soft smile – her monster smile

And her soft lips – her demon lips

And her soft hair – her devil hair

And her soft voice – her gargoyle voice

And he’s sobbing again, the wind flattening the tears that threaten to spill against his cornea.

He breathes roughly, deeply, banishing her visage from his mind like a persistent demon.

 

Sebastian tries to find hints linking him to the informer who contacted him.

Maybe in the username ? 

“sn!Tch” Capital T ? Does he know someone whose name starts with a T ? 

He tries to think, doesn’t succeed, his brain is too full of interrogations that clash one against another and mix and blend and blur.

He didn’t bring his gun, maybe in an excess of confidence, or trust, and now he regrets – he feels desperately naked and vulnerable without his weapon.

He pushes the door of the dinner and the smell of pancakes, waffles, coffee and eggs washes against him like a wave from the warm seas.

 

His eyes start registering every single little detail that could warn him of an imminent danger, his ears start recording, concentration amplifying the softest whispers. He greets with a nod the waitress who looks at him, and steps deeper into the dinner.

Alone at a table next to one of the giant windows, showing him their back, his informant is here, two cups of coffee in front of them. 

Their long, dark chocolate hair reminds Sebastian of something  – a woman, a woman, what woman ? 

He feels like the memory of the place he met her has been buried deep, or locked in a room he boarded the door of. 

The red ribbon holding her mane up burns Sebastian’s retina and inexorably pulls him closer, the blood color calling back buried feelings he thought were gone.

He finally shows up to her side, hails her by a “hey”. 

She turn to him, and Sebastian recognize her face.

It’s  _ her. _

The nurse.

 

The detective remembers her butterfly glasses and her red lips. He remember her peaceful face as she guided him through his safe – or relatively so – space.

Now, she’s wearing a dark eyeshadow that accentuates the dark circles under her frightened eyes, a red coral gloss over her dry lips pulled in a nervous smile, and a hint of blush to color her pale, maybe too pale skin. She stands up and offers him her hand to shake.

 

“Good morning sir. I was hoping you’d come,” she greets, her voice, a little shaking, almost a whisper.

“Well, here I am,” Sebastian replies, “and I still don’t know your name.”

“I’m Tatiana,” she says, inviting her interlocutor to take a seat. “Tatiana Gutierrez.”

 

She anxiously adjust the bow in her hair and designates the cup laying in front of Sebastian.

 

“I ordered a coffee for you.”

“Thank you.”

 

Sebastian clears his throat.

 

“Are you sure it is safe for you to come here ?" he asks. “Isn’t the organization monitoring your movements or something ?”

“They sent me on a commission,” she explains. “They’re tracking the route the car they lended me is taking.”

“Then aren’t you getting in trouble by coming here ?”

“I asked two friends – two friends from the ‘outside’, who I told I was stuck in a cult, to follow the itinerary and do my mission for me. It is not something ‘secret’ or anything. I left them the car at the red light just there,” she says as she points the post standing lower on the street. “When they’re done, they’ll come back through here, and I will get the car back.”

 

Sebastian stares at her, eyes wide, and nervousness eating his bones.

 

“This sounds really dangerous. You really don’t have any chance to fuck that up.”

“I will need to be quick when they arrive, that’s all,” she shrugs, taking a sip of coffee.

 

Her fingers are fidgeting and she glances rapidly at her phone, laid on the table. 

They sit in silence for a few seconds. Tatiana looks pained. She bites her glossy, red lip, the insides of her cheeks, shifting in her seat. 

 

“So… what did you want to tell me ?" Sebastian asks, breaking the uncomfortable silence. 

 

The woman sighs. 

 

“I had it all prepared in my head,” she huffs, “but now that we’re here, I can’t seem to know how to begin,” she adds with a bitter chuckle.

“So… can I ask you questions ?”

“Go for it. Maybe I’ll be able to answer.”

“First : what is  _ the name _ of this organization ?”

“Mobius.”

 

Her voice is clear, her chin lifted up, her shoulders tense. Sebastian can feel some kind of pride in her voice and posture mixed with – with what, exactly ? Something small and low, almost scared, something that feels like it want to curl up on itself and disappear. 

_ What is going on ? _

 

“When you contacted me,” he continues, “you said that you were with the organization, but wished you weren’t. What exactly is going on then ? Kidman told me people joined it because they wanted to, because they shared the same fucked-up ideals.”

 

Tatiana takes a gulp of coffee, swallow silently, and sighs – again.

 

“What you have to know, is that people join Mobius, either of their own will, because they ‘share the same fucked-up ideals’ as you said, or because they’ve been indoctrinated. Brainwashed.”

 

What feels like an electric shock stings Sebastian, and his insides jump under his flesh.

 

“... Brainwashed ? Brainwashed, like –”

“Like lobotomized with very precise and special technology, then submitted to a psychological brainwashing and thought-reshaping,” she explains, her voice methodical and direct, even if something – fear ? – is threatening to pierce through.

 

She has to take a deep breath. She’s starting to shake, her eyes anxiously scanning the room.

 

“Brainwashed, the people have these… grey, blank blue eyes. Once the brainwashing effects wear off, their eyes get their colors back.”

 

Sebastian stares at her hazel eyes. She anticipates his question.

 

“If the brainwash succeeds, then everything’s okay. Everything’s great. The people will work under anyone’s orders. They’re as malleable as clay. If it doesn’t, they realize what they’re doing. And they start freaking out.”

 

Her gaze goes dark. Dark and petrified. Her breath quickens and she swallows her saliva in a loud noise.

 

“And when they start freaking out, you  _ hear them. _ ”

 

Her hands start shaking more violently than before.

 

“You  _ hear them _ ,” she mutters, voice strangled, “ _ screaming _ in the dead of the night as they realize what they’re a part of. They kick and yell and try to escape, you hear them  _ crying _ .  _ Howling _ like wounded beasts. ”

 

She drinks more of her coffee, spilling some as she shudders. 

 

“So we catch them, sedate them, and lobotomize them again. Repeat the process of psychological indoctrination.”

 

Sebastian feels a tight knot forming in his throat.

 

“And you…?”

 

Tatiana puts her cup back in the saucer.

 

“Like many others, I found a way. I know,  _ I know _ what I’m doing is awful. I’m… ‘awake’. I am aware how terrible what I am asked to do is. My whole body, my brain, my mind are  _ screaming _ at me, telling me to go, to run, to escape…”

 

She takes another deep, shaky breath.

 

“But I can’t. So I do like many others. I don’t make waves. I don’t make noise. Maybe the others know I am aware of everything I do, but they don’t care, as long as I obey. I have no choice. If I am dissident, I’ll be lobotomized again, forget everything, and everything will return to zero. And I don’t want to forget.”

 

Sebastian’s brows furrow. 

 

“Why ? If you forgot, you wouldn’t have to live with the burden of what you’ve done.”

 

Tatiana offers him a small, but very soft smile. 

 

“I don’t want to forget what I built with Juli.”

“Juli…?" Sebastian

 

Tatiana nods, and gazes down into her drink.

 

“Yeah. We got kind of… close.”

 

Sebastian nods too.

 

“I have another question.”

“Yeah ?”

“It may be a little personal.”

 

The woman shrugs, in a way that means “go for it”.

 

“How did they…  _ get   _ you ?”

 

Tatiana puts one of her locks back behind her ear. Grimaces as the memories pool in her mouth and burn her tongue.

 

“I was working – as a nurse, a normal nurse – at Beacon when they started conducting experiments on patients.” She inhales, trying to put out the fire of a painful recollection sparking in her chest. “I had no idea what they were doing at the time but… the patients became more and more dangerous. Not for others, but for themselves. They…”

 

She swallows. Her eyes look a little damp.

 

“They starting hurting themselves in critical ways, they, they…”

 

She chokes on a sob, then another, and Sebastian has to stop her with a friendly gesture.

 

“Hey, hey, you don’t have to describe any of this if that hurts so much. Just skip to the next part, okay ?" he encourages, trying his best to seem sympathetic.

 

Tatiana lets out a small, bitter laugh.

 

“Yeah. Okay.” She exhales deeply. “I’ve seen some shit,” she chuckles sourly. “Anyway. I started to become… numb. I didn’t feel like myself anymore – hell, I didn’t feel like  _ anything  _  anymore. Days were just a blur, the numbers on the clock seemed to fall apart every time I looked at it.”

 

Another sip.

 

“Before I knew it, I had followed one of their myrmidons into  _ that _ . I was really easy to manipulate – it’s fairly simple to mold into anything you want someone as soft as a rag doll,” she hisses, as if wincing in pain.

 

She orders an orange juice when the waitress passes by their table.

 

“And so, here I am. Stuck in a mafia that uses and abuses the most mentally ill patients they can lay their dirty claws on to create a ‘new world order’ or some bullshit like that.”

 

Sebastian is taken apart by the woman’s swearing – she seemed so calm and reserved back in hell, so small on herself when he met her not ten minutes ago, and now she’s spilling over, like her coffee out of her cup.

Another question lingers in his mind. He knows about Myra, he knows why she’s with them, he knows, case closed, let’s burn the files. But…

 

“.. And Kidman ?”

 

He sounded a little bitter, her betrayal still stuck in his throat, and Tatiana starts shaking harder, her eyes wide with panic, fear on her lips. 

 

“She wasn’t even seventeen when they got her,” she starts spouting, voice wobbly, “and you know how it is : when they’re young enough, you can mold them, shape them into whatever you want them to be ! She was very easily influenced, having grown with a neglecting mother, surrounded by cultists…”

 

She has to stop, out of breath, as Sebastian tries to reassure her. The waitress lays her orange juice on the table and she dives in it.

 

“She trusted them. The people of the organization. They got her off the streets after she ran away from her home, they fed her, gave her an education, a bed, toys, they showed themselves in the best light possible, made idols out of their members…”

 

She grimaces, her next sentences and the memories attached tasting tart under her palate. 

 

“They tailored her spirit and implanted in her head the thought that she was,  _ is  _  in control, that it was her choice to work with them, but… you know what they say : ‘a rat in a maze is free to go anywhere as long as it stays in the maze’.”

“Who said that ?" Sebastian interrupts her.

“An author, I don’t remember who, I am sorry.”

 

She looks into her half-empty glass of orange juice.

 

“Please understand her. She’s just coming to terms with knowing that she has been manipulated since that day, but she has a decade of conditioning and thought-control behind her… Please…”

 

Her voice cracks a little, a single tear falls into her drink. She curses under her breath. 

 

“I will try,” Sebastian says, his voice as soft as he can without sounding honeyed. “I, well, still feel betrayed and all, but I can try to understand her with what you’ve told me.”

 

Tatiana cracks up a smile from under her red lipgloss. 

Her phones vibrates and flashes its white light, making the two of them jump in their seat. She unlocks the screen with a fluid movement of her finger.

 

“Sh– okay they’re coming back,” she mumbles, urgency piercing in her voice as she reads the text.

 

She empties her drink like she would do with a vodka shot, and puts the glass back on the table with a smacking sound.

She lifts her eyes from the ghost of her orange juice and looks straight into Sebastian’s eyes, hers burning with something new.

Sebastian almost shudders under her gaze.   

 

“Never go back to Beacon,” she adjures, voice strong and determined. “Even if you had proof of Mobius’s actions, they’re too powerful. They would  _ crush _ you.”

 

She slips her phone into one of her pockets without ceasing to stare at the detective.

 

“Forget everything you could have seen within Beacon’s walls, let go of Myra – for your sake, and for your partner’s.”

“Why would I –”

“You need to. You’re  _ haunted _ , Sebastian,” she enunciates, her voice a little low, dark, secretive. Trying to hide the ghost from people’s eyes. “And haunted people become ghosts at their turn.”

 

Sebastian’s chin lifts up involuntarily, as if defiant – or accusing a blow.

 

“Do you want to become a ghost and see your partner, unable to hold you back on Earth, lose hope on you ?”

“No,” he answers, choking on the picture that painted itself in my mind.

“Then forget.”

 

She leans to the window, checking the street for her car.

 

“Focus on relearning how to live. Forget everything about Myra, Mobius, the people trapped in it, Ruvik, Beacon. Or at least hide them in a part of your mind where they’ll die a slow death.”

 

Sebastian opens his mouth to speak, she cuts him short.

 

“If you told someone the truth about them, you’d be asked who informed you, you’d have to sell me and Juli, and we’d be in big, big trouble.”

 

Tatiana takes a deep, deep breath, closes her eyes. When she reopens them, they look softer, almost sad, but still resigned

 

“Forget everything. Do not care about me, Juli, Myra, anyone who is not your partner, your chief, your colleagues, the friends you’ll make, the people who will keep you alive starting from this very moment.”

“But what about you ?" Sebastian asks, voice strangled.

“Don’t worry about me,” the nurse orders, her voice strangely soft. “When I’ll be able to get out, I’ll do it by myself. I’m lucky to have friends from ‘the outside’ who want to help me.”

“And then ?”

“Then, I’ll do like you,” she says, a muted sadness in her hazel eyes. “I’ll forget and focus on my new life.”

“What if they discover you spoke to me ? They’ll brainwash you, won’t they ? How will it go with Kidman ?" Sebastian worries.

 

A resigned melancholy pulls Tatiana’s lips in a small smile.

 

“We’ll start over. I know Juli, I trust her. We’ll be fine.”

 

She glances at the window.

 

“I believe it was worth it.”

 

She sighs. Then, with a sharp change in her eyes, she pulls her chin up. Squares her shoulders, adjusts her cuffs, fixes her ribbon. She pulls her wallet from her pocket and starts standing up, only to be interrupted by Sebastian who extends one of his arms to stop her.

 

“No, don’t – just go. I’ll pay. Go.”

 

She offers him a genuine, if a little embarrassed, smile. 

 

“You’re a gentleman.”

 

With that, she’s storming out of the dinner. Her heels clack against the tile and Sebastian feels like he’s watching her in slow-motion, running back to her personal little hell, her ponytail dancing like a ballerina on a swing. She pulls the door open and rushes outside. The wind slaps her face with its ice-cold hand, reddening her cheeks, whipping her neck with her mane, and she runs down the sidewalk, to the red light, in a desperate sprint to catch the car that just stopped here. 

Two people exit the vehicle, one disappears in, the light turns green and, just like that, she’s gone. 

Away she goes, little spark of truth, back into the darkness she fades.

 

 

 

 


	7. Pink Bandage on A Raw Wound.

They’ve gone home.  
Joseph came into the dinner to pick up a Sebastian that had his head hidden in his crossed arms.  
A gloved hand sympathetically patted the tense shoulder.

In the car, Sebastian had his eyes closed, his head weighting against the headrest.  
After the first half of the ride home, in which he hadn’t spoken at all, he let out a long, heavy, exhausted sigh.

“Well, then. We’re done with that.”

He opened his eyes, straightened in his seat.

“What did you think we should make for diner ?”

 

The plates are drying next to the sink. The kitchen light is off. Their teeth are clean, their breaths smell like mint. They’re sitting in the comfortable sofa, eyes on a TV that Joseph isn’t used to watch.  
Sebastian is staring at the screen. He’s not even trying to make sense of the silhouettes moving on it anymore, barely focusing on what they have to say. Their words dance in front of Sebastian’s retinae, then mix and blend and blur, smearing at his ears. At least it covers the beast of his love and trust that howls, hurt and deceived, under his skull.  
Joseph has his earphones on and a book in his gloved hands. His tired, half-lidded eyes that he fights to keep open run across the pages, barely taking in any information. The Canto Ostinato that rings in his tympans, the piano notes racing frantically yet so beautifully through his whole body, banishes Kidman’s – **traitor** – face away.  
Sebastian switches channels. It’s the news.  
‘Murders murders war war war a dog saved from drowning war war starving children –’  
He switches again.  
A report on an underground mafia-type organization that wants to control the world, using human trafficking and –  
He switches again.  
The rediffusion of a movie from quite a few years back. Sebastian has seen it ; he went to see it at the cinema with My–  
He switches again.  
A documentary on a koala family in the zoo of the nearest big city.  
_They look cute_ , Sebastian thinks, as he sits deeper in the comfortable sofa.  
The narrator explains, in a deep and modulated voice, that the adult koalas, two females, had been seen adopting the two babies of a very ill mother, that later perished. When the zookeepers had tried to separate the two ‘mothers’ and put them in different cages, one of them broke free by stealing her guardian’s keys and rejoined her sweetheart. The baby koalas immediately started considering the two adults as their own mothers and wouldn’t let the zookeepers break their ‘family’, attacking anyone who tried to separate them.

“I am so, so sorry for Myra,” Joseph’s voice interrupts the reporter.

Sebastian snaps out of his very interested trance and slightly turns to his partner.

“And I am too. For Kidman,” he adds.

He gets back to his lesbian koalas, not seeing Joseph’s interrogating furrow of brows as he dives back into his book.  
The two koalas and their adopted babies soon became the stars of the zoo they were in, and many zoologists came to visit this atypical family. The zoo received many angry letters from parents that didn’t want to explain to their kids why the baby koalas had two mothers and not one-daddy-one-mommy, but the director also found, among these, more pleasant ones : the lesbian and lesbian rights associations of the city had made of these mothers their symbol, and many of their members were donating money in order to make sure the little family was well cared for.  
Sebastian suddenly feels a weight on his shoulder as a flat, dry sound is heard. He jumps slightly in his seat, pulled out of his daydream by the noise.  
Joseph fell asleep on his shoulder, glasses digging into his cheek and his partner’s clavicle, wet locks falling in front of his eyes, lips parted, and his book, that slipped off his gloved hand, lying open on the floor.

Sebastian turns the TV off.  
Silence walks into the room, bringing with it a dim light and the cold air of the night.  
The man takes carefully his partner’s glasses off his nose and folds them cautiously before laying them on the small table. He pulls the earphones out of Joseph’s ears, unplug them from his phone and, after he’s done rolling them around two of his fingers, lets them rejoin the glasses. He then gently disengages himself from under Joseph's weight, sliding an arm across his back to support him so he doesn’t fall on the side. Sebastian slides his other arm under the younger man’s knees, always so meticulously and unhurriedly as to not wake him up, and then brings him closer to his own chest, letting Joseph’s head fall into the crook of his neck.  
He stands up, his partner weighing in his arms and, taking small steps he’s sure won’t wake the other man up, walks to the bedroom.

Sebastian almost regrets carrying his partner that way, his vertebrae screaming in pain and calling him an asshole as he lays a sleeping Joseph down in a nest of blanket.  
Sebastian straightens, a hand on his lower back, torn between the excruciating pain and the pride of having carried his partner to his room without dropping him, stubbing a toe or bumping into a wall. He didn’t think he still was that strong.  
Sebastian is puffing and whining under his breath, trying to make that old man pain go away, when Joseph jolts – half – awake with a muffled and sleepy “uh !” and looks for Sebastian with his unfocused and dizzy eyes. They find the other man’s silhouette and Joseph raises his eyebrows in interrogation as the other man winces in pain.

“You’re heavy,” Sebastian chuckles, out of breath, and his partner falls back, head first, into his pillow.  
“Mmmh’ll give you a massage,” he mumbles into the cushion, “but tomorrmmmh…”

And, like that, Joseph is asleep again. Sebastian calls his name, softly, just to be sure, but Joseph doesn’t even move.  
Sebastian laughs a bit.  
He molts out of his day clothes, memories and the smell of smoke clinging to them like monsters used to do to Sebastian’s throat, folds them and, in nothing but his underwear, he walks to the laundry corner.  
**Fear.**  
It is here again, sticking to his skin like honey.  
He’s a vulnerable little boy, walking in the dark where shadows swarm.  
_Shit shit shit shit_  
He walks a little faster, trying to distance the monsters crawling after him.  
He’s naked and all of his skin is exposed to their dirty, dirty hands covered in dry blood.  
_Shit shit shit shit shit fuck_  
He reaches a switch, turns the light on. It blinds him, and he hopes the monsters too. He throws his clothes putrid with betrayal and fire in the washing machine and starts it.  
He stays still.  
Aside from the machine, nothing is heard.  
No monster, no ghost, no ghoul.  
Nothing but the tick-tock of the clock. The humming of the fridge. The cars outside.  
Sebastian takes a deep, deep breath.  
Turn around, faces his fears.  
No one is here.  
_Well you look like a fucking idiot right now._  
He takes two, careful steps.  
Turns the light off.  
Runs like hell.

He’s out of breath and shaking with what is left of fear that still sticks to his skin. He tries to inhale, exhale, be calm, relax.  
Inhale, exhale, like the therapist recommended.  
The room is strangely cold and the iced breath of the air bites his neck.  
**A ghost ? A ghost ? A ghost ?**  
Sebastian chastises his irrational brain, insults him once or twice for good measure. ‘A ghost’. And what else.  
**A ghost ? Ghost ? Myra ? Lily ?**  
He bites the knuckles of his closed fist so his palm doesn’t land on his cheek.  
Inhale, exhale, deep breath, deep breath, deeper, let the air chase the memories and the thoughts like a gust of wind sweeps away the clouds.  
He rushes to the closet and picks a pair of comfortable grey sweatpants and the first relatively warm undershirt he puts his hand on.  
The rustle of the sheets makes him turn around.  
Joseph, who was laying on his stomach, has risen on his elbows and is staring at Sebastian, squinting, eyebrows raised and mouth open in the recognizable expression of a short-sighted man trying to see clearly.  
Sebastian is standing there, clothes in his hands and nothing but his underwear on his ass, under his partner’s gaze.  
A few embarrassing seconds pass.

“Sexy,” Joseph blurts out, voice hoarse with sleep.

His mouth is barely closed that his head falls back into his pillow.

 

Sebastian wakes up around 11pm, sweating, sleeping atop of the blanket. Strangely, this time, he is not sweating because of fear, panic, or a particular nightmare, and is weirdly pleased to realize it.  
Still, he is swimming in his own perspiration, the undershirt he picked keeping him too warm under the heavy blanket – and Joseph’s whole body holding him tightly doesn’t help either.  
Sebastian tries to wiggle out of his clothing without waking up his partner – the enterprise actually harder than it looks.  
Finally, the garment slides over his head and he drops it besides the bed. He stretches a bit, feeling the air on his damp skin, before hiding under the blanket as the cold starts biting his flesh.  
Sebastian wiggles and squirms, trying to find a good position with Joseph not wanting to let go and let him settle under the covers. With a movement a little too rough, the older man wakes his partner up, who blinks and mumbles as he is dragged out of his dreams.

“Shit,” Sebastian curses under his breath, “sorry Joe, I didn’t mean to wake you up, I just –”

The words are stopped in his ribcage by Joseph’s gloved hand on his torso.  
_What…?_  
Sebastian watches his partner’s hand pat his chest lightly, before the man nods and lets out a short, almost appreciative, hum.  
Sebastian’s brows rise to his hairline.  
Joseph falls back asleep, head lodged between his partner’s pectorals.  
Sebastian’s brows rise to the back of his head.

 

Sebastian wakes up first. His left arm, stranded over the blanket, is cold. He cannot move, for Joseph is holding him tight in his surprisingly strong arms for a sleeping man, head still resting on the older man’s thorax.  
Sebastian sighs, and the rising of his chest makes Joseph groans in his sleep. Sebastian squints to read the time on his partner’s bedside clock. It’s past 9 in the morning.  
_Oh shit_  
He carefully tries to roll on the side and extend his cold arm to grab the cellphone laying on his nightstand. His clavicle cracks and he curses under his breath.  
Still trapped between Joseph’s arms, he unlocks the screen that notifies him of a new message.

‘Chief : don’t even think about coming back to work before everything is settled down and you feel better.’  
Sebastian sighs. Everyone seems pretty adamant about not letting him work in his state.  
_I’m fine_ , he thinks, considering texting the Chief.  
Then he remembers that he got scared of the dark on the previous night and Myra’s face made him bite his own flesh, so, maybe be needs a little more time after all.  
_If it ever gets worse…_  
He tries not to dwell on that and, thankfully, Joseph wakes up at this moment to distract him.  
The younger man grumbles as he realizes he’s awake. He blinks slowly, eyebrows rising.  
Without letting go of Sebastian, Joseph slightly throws his head back to observe his partner in his entirety. The older man watches him squint, raise an eyebrow, inspect the bare chest he slept on with dazed eyes.  
Joseph lets out a contemplative hum, followed by a light ‘uuuh…’ that has Sebastian chuckle.

“Hi, Joe,” he greets softly.

Joseph’s eyes climb from his torso to his eyes to meet his gaze.

“... Hello, Seb.”  
“Slept well ?” the older man asks, a little mocking.  
“Well, you’re pretty comfortable,” Joseph says, not picking up the irony in his partner’s voice.

Sebastian almost – _almost_ – blushes. He laughs it off, hoping Joseph didn’t notice.

“You owe me a massage,” Sebastian reminds his partner as his hand absently starts rubbing one of Joseph’s shoulders.  
“Uh ?”  
“Yesterday. You fell asleep on me when we were watching TV and I carried you to the bed.”

Joseph’s eyes widen. His breath hitches in his throat and a light, pink hue colors his cheeks.  
Sorry ? What ? Sebastian’s mind mutters, his mental voice high-pitched and shocked.

“... You did ?”

Joseph’s voice is so small, almost shy, that it makes Sebastian’s heart skip a beat. His blushing doesn’t help either.  
The older man has to clears his throat, chase the embarrassing feeling that pulsates in his throat.

“Mh. Yeah. I felt like I threw my back out, you opened an eye, I told you you were heavy and you mumbled you’d give me a massage.” He tries to laugh it off, like it is nothing, but Joseph’s embarrassment makes it really hard to think straight.

Joseph lets his head fall back into his pillow. His cheeks are still red and Sebastian finds it weirdly… upsetting. He’s upset at the compromising feeling that now drums in his lips along with his heartbeat.  
Now what the hell dude ?

“Well then,” Joseph shrugs with a forced nonchalance, “I guess. A promise’s a promise.”

Sebastian’s heart almost falls out of his mouth.

“I mean you didn’t _promise_ anything per se don’t feel obligated to –”  
“Turn around,” Joseph gently orders, interrupting his blathering.

Sebastian acquiesces, tries to cough that _goddamned_ feeling out of his throat and does as Joseph said. He rolls on his other side, showing his back to his partner.

“Alright. Where did it hurt ?”  
“Uh, somewhere between the eighteenth and twenty-second vertebra, where the thoracics and lumbars meet ?”

Joseph’s cold hands lay on his skin and he feels the man’s thumbs start rubbing small circles on his lower back. The contact feels electric.

“Well, you seem to have had a very localized pain,” Joseph observes as his fingers trace the sides of Sebastian’s spine.  
“Haha yeah.”

 _I’m just making shit up man._  
Joseph delicate fingers press precise spots on Sebastian’s back with a thorough meticulousness. The man can feel little heat points spark under his skin as his partner tries to find the indicted vertebrae.  
_Maybe I should tell him it was all bullshit…_  
Sebastian tries to think, the words climb up to his mouth, but he finally swallows them back, deciding that, fuck it, he could as well enjoy a massage and hope Joseph never brings it up again.  
The younger man starts humming as he conscientiously increases the pressure of his fingers on Sebastian’s back. He then adds his whole palms in a more intense kneading, his thumbs and their soft Mounts of Venus rubbing warmly the tense muscles under Sebastian’s skin.  
Sebastian who, finally, gave up on telling Joseph that he lied, and decided he’d enjoy the meticulous massage his partner offers.  
Instinctively, his back rounds, presses back against the younger man’s hands like a cat appreciating a petting. The warmth created by the rigorous stroking feels welcome on Sebastian’s tired back, and he lets his head fall deeper into his pillow, grateful for Joseph’s magical hands. He stretches his legs, his toes curl in appreciation, and soon he is dazing off, made dizzy by the coziness of the situation and the warm, if unwanted, feeling swimming up and down between his throat and his chest.

“Feeling better ?” Joseph asks, his voice soft, a little hushed, personal – almost intimate – against Sebastian’s skin.

Sebastian lets out a low, appreciative moan, similar to a very deep purring as Joseph’s hands rub his skin in pleasant strokes.  
Maybe he should carry Joseph to bed more often, after all.

 

 _What is going on ?_  
Sebastian is standing under the pouring water.  
It came back.  
The feeling, heavy like a coat of plumb, draping his shoulders, coating his limbs.  
His eyes are staring, two blank mirrors, in the distance, watching the cockroaches swarming inside the walls.  
He was hoping the shower would scrub his naked skin and the raw wounds under his scalp of the memories with the foul smell of smoke **(the smoke that burns the flesh, tender flesh, juvenile flesh, his daughter’s flesh)** and of the feeling of betrayal that veils his skin, sticking like sugar, and threatens to rust his flesh, but it doesn’t, and Sebastian feels dumb, standing under water that burns him.

He was fine just an hour ago, he even laughed during breakfast, what happened ?  
A shadow shaped like Lily stood by the window, he saw his ex-wife’s face in the dishwater, and soon the hurt animal curled in his chest was howling in pain again, and more monsters climbed out of the healing wounds in Sebastian’s minds, scratching through the scab and reopening them, spilling their acidic venom on the edges and salt in the cut.  
Soon, new devils shaped like his wife with a match in her hand and gasoline in the other where crawling inside of the man, putrefying his guts, creeping up his trachea and crushing it in their blood-clothed hands, choking the words in Sebastian’s throat.  
Sebastian told Joseph, the ache in his thorax menacing to spill like blood from his mouth if he spoke to loud, that he wasn’t feeling well and needed a shower.  
Joseph watched him walk away, shoulders tense but limbs heavy, a little twitching as if his blood was boiling under the thin tent of his skin.

Sebastian’s legs give up under his weight and he falls, head first, into the bathtub.  
A stabbing pain sparks under the skin of his temple and on the side of his nose, momentarily blinding him and splattering red dots under his eyelids, and blows up all over one half of his face, coating his flesh like a splash of burning paint.  
The pain starts throbbing under his skin, from his eyebrow bone to his chin, like a heart erratically beating under a thin beige sheet. Sebastian opens his mouth and a gravelly, pained sound escape his lips, some of his inner demons spilling out with his voice and splashing, like dying fishes, in the few centimeters of water.  
Sebastian tries to pull himself up on his elbows, eyes cracking open as the pain hammers his temple, and he sees, a knot of panic tying his throat, blood being washed in spirals by the water, a red waltz on the white porcelain.

“Oh, shit,” Sebastian curses, voice hoarse, and the twitching of his lips sends the blood dripping from his nose to splatter in small, crimson drops the edges of the tub.

Frenetic knocks are heard on the door.

“Seb ?” Joseph worried, clear voice calls from the other side of the door.

The man bleeding and dizzy with pain in the bathtub tries to answer his distressed partner, but only a choked and breathless whine can make it past his lips.

“Sebastian ? Can I come in ?”

Sebastian’s arms can’t support his weight and his head falls back onto the bathtub floor. He curls up on his side so he doesn’t breathe in his own blood, adjusts his legs so to cover his crotch, and lets out the loudest “yes” he can make – a croaky, tiny little throaty sound – and with that, Joseph is stepping into the bathroom.  
They stopped locking that door when they used the shower, mostly because they never knew when they would come crashing down, sadness punching them in the guts and pulling all of the water in their body out through their lacrimal glands, or when they would start seeing demons with barbed wire for jewelry dance at the sink, and needed the other’s reassuring presence in the room with them.  
Joseph runs to the tub, calling his partner’s name.

“Sebastian ? Seb ! What happened ?”

His arm runs under the water and he yelps, immediately adjusting the faucet.

“Why is the water so damn hot ? What are you trying to do, fry yourself ?!”

Joseph bends over the edge of the tub, pulling his gloves off and throwing them haphazardly over his shoulder, before one of his hand comes to rest against Sebastian’s cheek, moving a few locks that curtains the wounded man’s gaze.

“Sebastian ?” Joseph calls softly. “Sebastian, can you hear me ? What happened ?”

Sebastian pulls himself up on his elbows then unsteadily rises, pushing on his hands, arms wobbly and tainted with red. He’s out of breath and a crimson ribbon dances in front of his lips and chin, dripping from his nose.

“Fell,” he manages to huff, “face first.”

He forces himself to sit, falling back gracelessly on his ass, and pulls his knees to his chest to hide his private parts.  
He huffs a few seconds more, pain still pulsating at his temples, cheekbones and bridge of his nose, following the rhythm of his heartbeat that pounds against his ribs.  
Joseph kneels in front of him and Sebastian can see his worry painting his face pale and carving lines between his eyebrows. With cautious fingers, Joseph pushes his partner’s locks back on his skull and behind his ears to observe cautiously the wounds.

“How does it look ?” Sebastian asks, voice still croaky.

Joseph doesn’t answer and, with the tip of an excruciatingly gentle finger, grazes over the red bruise on Sebastian's brow bone.  
Sebastian winces.

“You’ve got contusions above your eye, on your cheekbone and on the side of the bridge of your nose,” he enunciates calmly, matter-of-factly, trying his best not to freak his partner out by showing the concern in his voice.  
“Shit,” Sebastian swears under his breath, before wiping the blood off his upper lip with a shaky hand.  
“Also, your nose is bleeding, but it doesn’t seem to be crooked.”

Sebastian squints, both of his eyes searching his nose, and bloody fingers rise up to it before Joseph gently slaps them out of the way.

“We should get you to a doctor. Just to be sure it is not broken.”

Sebastian nods.

“Yeah. Um. Can I finish showering before we go ?”  
“Do you need help ?” Joseph offers.  
“That would be great.”

Sebastian grabs the shower head and holds it out for the younger man to grab, before turning around, presenting his large back to Joseph’s careful hands.  
The water feels way more pleasant on his skin now that it isn’t as hot as lava, and his partner’s cautious hands on his shoulder and in his hair are very pleasant too.  
He thinks of the morning’s massage.  
The warmth of the blood on his flesh suddenly seems very weak compared to the one that tickles in his chest.

“How did that happen ?” Joseph asks, pulling Sebastian out of his reverie. “You didn’t just _slip_ , did you ?”

The warm feeling disappears. The little devils are back, their maniacal laugh muffled by the dull pain in his skull.

“I just… started feeling like shit. I started feeling like shit and my legs just… bent. They bent and I fell.”

Joseph’s hands feel gentler, more compassionate and tender in Sebastian's hair.

“Why did you start feeling like shit ? What happened ?” he asks, voice calm.

Sebastian almost choke on the saliva he tries to swallow, memories getting stuck in his throat.

“I just.. thought of Lily.”

The vivid, blood-tainted picture of his little daughter being devoured by a monster with teeth of fire flashes in his mind. He immediately closes his eyes, hoping the darkness behind his eyelids can banish that image away. It doesn’t, but Joseph soft palm rubbing soap on his nape manages to. Sebastian reopens his eyes.  
He tries to finish his sentence, the second name like gasoline under his teeth, just waiting for the match of his voice to set it ablaze.

“And of Myra.”

He feels the fire claw at his tongue and dive in his throat, but lukewarm water cascading on his hair and shoulders sets it off, his partner’s sympathetic hum the final shower on the dying embers.  
Joseph’s voice in his ears and hands on his skin feel like Sebastian’s own little exorcism.

 

Sebastian is disinfecting the little scrapes in the heart of the bruises, standing in front of the mirror with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He lets out small, weak curses to show his disapprobation at the marks on his skin.  
Joseph comes back into the bathroom with clean clothes on his arms and hands them to Sebastian.  
The older man thanks his partner, takes the underwear out of the pile, turns around and drops his towel to get dressed.  
Joseph chokes on the nervous laugh that almost made it past his lips, an embarrassing heat embraces his pink face and chest and he hardly tears his shining eyes off Sebastian’s bottom.  
He mumbles something about starting the car and waiting for Sebastian there before storming out of the bathroom and racing to the kitchen, swaying erratically on his feet, where he empties a whole bottle of cold spring water.

 

Sebastian gets out of the doctor’s office with gauze in his nostril.

“See, it wasn’t broken,” he chuckles as Joseph drives out of the parking lot. “You got worried for nothing.”  
“I’d rather pay a doctor ‘for nothing’ than have you live with a broken nose and the complications that entails,” Joseph huffs, a little vexed.

Sebastian laughs a little louder and Joseph loses his focus on the road for half a second.

“Hey, I mean, I’m not complaining.” he shrugs.

In a burst of affection, Sebastian puts his head on Joseph’s shoulder and rubs against it like a friendly cat.

“I like it when you take care of me,” he purrs with a smile.

Joseph almost drives straight into a pole.

 

 

 


	8. The Sea Shall Take It All.

The demons are quieter now. Myra’s face is a blur, a silhouette in a deep white fog. Not that Sebastian doesn’t think of her anymore, but she’s been relegated in a dark chamber somewhere in his mind, a room he bypasses often only to spit on the door. He put up a sign that says “in here is locked the devil – do not open” and a hundred locks and chains strong like Cerberus’s teeth.  
Myra lives here, he knows she does. He’s not forgetting her. He just confined her in there, and crosses his fingers for her devil claws never to reach the bolts.  
Lily is still here, though.  
She doesn’t want to be forgotten.  
Innocent victim, she is of this kind of ghosts that won’t leave you, wanting you to acknowledge them, see their pain, bring justice on their unfair fates.  
Sometimes, Sebastian looks at her picture, the one he chopped Myra’s face off of.  
He observes her, her yellow dress, her smile with her missing teeth, and he hears her voice from above the heavy curtain of death.  
Some nights, as he opens his eyes and the digital clock displays 12:00, he can see her out of the corner of his eye. She’s watching him, and Joseph in his arms, with her deep little eyes, and that heavy curtain feels like a thin silk veil.  
He blinks and she’s gone.  
He gets out of bed, drags his body to the bathroom and cries, sometimes a few tears, sometimes all of the water in this tired body of his, until Joseph rejoins him, holds him and lets him sob against his shoulder.

He brings her flowers.  
He jokes with Joseph about how long it has been since the last time he brought flower to a living girl. Joseph tried to laugh with him the few first times, but stopped soon. Now, Sebastian’s crude laugh disappears, only to uncover the deep dark sadness that pools under it. The two men walk around this profound pond of despair, Sebastian sometimes coming a little too close to the water, Joseph gently pulling him back on the dry grass.

 

“Hey, Joe ?” Sebastian calls his snoozing partner as they lay, in the warm light of a summer afternoon, atop their blanket.

Joseph’s head rises out of his pillow.

“Mmmh ?” he mumbles.  
“Could you drive me to the sea, tomorrow ?”

Joseph frowns.

“The sea…? Why ?”  
“Oh I just need a cliff to do something, hum, dramatic.”

The younger man’s eyes widen as fear creeps on his face and Sebastian has to wave his hands and shake his head frantically to banish the implication of his sentence and Joseph’s crooked thought.

“No, no ! I won’t – I won’t try to jump ! I just –”

He stops, lets his hands fall back at his sides.

“You’ll see. Just... trust me, alright ?”

Joseph’s brows rise in an almost mocking expression, and a tiny pawky smile teases the corner of his lips.  
Sebastian gently elbows him in the ribs.

“Stop that !” he chuckles.

 

They searched for a ‘nice, cinematic’ cliff on their computer, and Sebastian decided for one two hours away from Krimson City.

“What do you want to do here ?” Joseph asks.  
“You’ll see,” Sebastian answered.

They left their apartment at five, cradled by the heat under the warm sea of the sky and drove, all windows open, to the seaside.

They’re driving through a little fishermen village, the small houses of white walls and gray roofs firmly planted in the black tar of the exiguous streets, the old ladies at the windows watching them pass by with their small eyes.

When they reach the smaller roads, the ones that guide to the sea, Sebastian can see the cliff.  
A sand-colored giant with hair of green grass and yellow flowers, raw edges of sharp rocks, its colossal feet set deep in the Earth, waves crashing against them like sorrow-crazed lovers.  
Sebastian’s eyes take on all that light, all that air, they start shining, full of stars, and his mouth curls up in genuine, soft smile.  
Joseph catches of glimpse of his partner’s happiness out of the corner of his eye and something warmer than this late afternoon air settles in his chest.

They eventually reach a path of sand and grit, not large enough to carry a car on, that guides to the cliff. Joseph parks his vehicle in the grass and the two men gets out of the habitacle.

They walk.  
Sebastian leads the way. His steps are heavy on the soft ground but they make no sound, almost as if he is walking in his own ghost body. Joseph follows.  
They watch the nature, the grass and the ground and the rocks and the sea, the salty air licking their skins, the warm atmosphere making them tug at their collars.  
They reach the moor where the pink and purple flowers dance under the marine breeze, where the soil is a little darker, and Sebastian’s back straightens as he approach the end of the cliff. Joseph stands back, anxious. He feels, somewhere deep in his core, that this moment will be Sebastian’s, only Sebastian’s, something intimate, and he should look away.  
But he doesn’t.

He watches Sebastian stand, tall, heavy on this earth, breathing with all of his large chest, letting the smell of the sea purify the abandoned and dirty rooms in his mind.  
Sebastian feels Joseph’s presence, a few feet behind him, and he is grateful.  
Grateful for this man, for everything he’s done for him, for the two of them.  
He wants Joseph to see this and everything that will follow.  
Sebastian extends his left arm in front of him, fingers open, palm to the sun.  
The honeyed light of the setting sun bathes him and Joseph, cradles them, kisses them.  
Slowly, as if pulling a knife from a wound, Sebastian takes his wedding ring off his finger.  
The two men share this moment, this place, the golden halo of the sun.  
Sebastian holds the ring between his thumb and index, watching its gold glint as the rays of the sun lick it.  
He closes his fist over it. Hopes his palm could crush it.  
And Joseph watches, the next moments unwinding before his eyes as time stretches like a ribbon, Sebastian bend backwards, all of his weight reposing on one of his legs, his arm pulling back, and in a display of raw strength bursting in emotion, he throws the ring into the sea.  
All of the locks on the door where he kept the viscid memories of his traitor wife blow up, burning the door with them and the whole room too, the devils confined here falling with the ring into the abysses as they scream, clawing at the walls and the floor, wanting to stay, stay and haunt, but soon they hit the water and, in the agonizing howl of monsters perishing, here they go.

Joseph runs to Sebastian’s side after his shocked scream has died into the heat of this golden evening and his hand reaches for his partner’s as they watch, two giants above the ocean, Sebastian’s ring disappear, swallowed by the waves.

Here goes Sebastian’s marriage.  
Here goes his monster wife, her killing of their daughter, the hell she, and her organization, put him and Joseph through.  
Into the cold, deep sea, to be thrown against the rocks by the violent waves, torn apart by the siren's teeth.

Gone.  
Gone.  
Gone.

Sebastian’s ribcage is left open by the leaving of his inner behemoths, and the sun, the gold, the warmth, they all rush in, the rooms full of ashes vanish into diamonds dust, and the man starts crying.

 

He sat down to cry, not wanting to disturb the sea with his feelings, and Joseph crouched next to him.  
It’s the first time he doesn’t cry in the enclosure of the apartment and he feels a little too loud, scared to bother the grass and the flowers with his unnecessary tears, but nothing tells him to shut up, so he lets himself cry as much as he needs.  
Joseph holds him, a hand on his back, the other on his arm, and watches him with very soft eyes and a softer, very calm, smile – not that Sebastian can see, his eyes are too full of water.  
Sebastian wipes his tears with the back of his hand and snuffles like a child.

“How was I ? Was that dramatic enough ?” he asks.

Joseph’s eyes widen in interrogation before he lets out a very light laugh.

“That was grandiose.”

Sebastian laughs, Joseph does too, and they stay, sitting in the middle of unbothered flowers, until the air of the night starts breathing on their napes.

“Do you want to go home ?” Joseph finally asks.  
“I think I saw a restaurant back in the village, maybe we could check it out ?”  
“Sure, why not ?”

Joseph helps him up and they walk back to the car, the orange of the sky having changed into a hot, glowing pink.  
Sebastian resists the temptation to check if the ring has stranded on a rock, feeling like regret would climb to his throat if he did – but the ring is gone, the sea has swallowed it whole, a present for the mermaids.  
He’s holding Joseph’s gloved hand as they get back to the vehicle.

The golden lights in the restaurant dance like little fires in Joseph’s dark eyes, define the planes and lines and angles of his face as he laughs and smiles, and Sebastian orders red wine for the two of them.

 

 

 


	9. And Him, Too.

Joseph loves to see Sebastian this way.  
Lighter on his feet, as if all the weight of Myra’s crooked smiles had drowned with the ring, his shoulders more relaxed, more flashes of his teeth as he smiles.

They’re laying on top of their blanket, Sebastian in a cotton tee and sweatpants, Joseph in a tank top and his underwear, staring at each other without saying a word. This is not as awkward as it sounds.  
Joseph has a very soft smile on his lips and Sebastian wonders which one of he or the meds pull that off.  
The room is warm, the outside too, and they felt brave enough to open the window.

“Hey,” Sebastian calls softly.

Joseph hums in response.

“Do you want me to return you that massage ?”

Joseph raises an eyebrow. He finally shrugs and rolls on his side, showing his back to Sebastian.

“I’m probably not as good as you,” Sebastian admits.

Joseph shrugs again.

 

Joseph is trying to wash the sweat off his skin. Warmer weather is great, especially when it makes Sebastian decide he’s not wearing any top, but for Joseph, who cannot help but slide under the blankets no matter the temperature of the room, it can become suffocating very quickly.  
Joseph closes his eyes and lets the water cascade over his head and shoulders.  
**Someone is here.**  
Joseph stills.  
His blood freezes.  
**Someone**  
He tries to inhale and exhale slowly, deeply, only to feel fear creep into his lungs as the vicious air of the bathroom enters his bloodstream  
**is here**  
He tries to reason the feeling out of his brain, but it doesn’t want to go. It stands, draped in its deep dark coat, a crooked smile on its lips, in front of his eyes.  
Open your eyes, open your eyes, you’ll see, there’s no one there…  
When he gathers the courage, he does.  
Someone is here.  
Myra is here.  
She’s standing, her elongated silhouette draped in her black coat, her deep, dark eyes, like opaque marbles in her ash-gray orbits staring at Joseph.  
Staring.  
Staring.  
Joseph can barely hear the sound of the water.  
Myra smiles, revealing two rows of sharp, black teeth.  
She takes a step forward.  
Joseph jumps back, and slips.  
He feels Myra’s gaze on his body as she watches him fall.  
She starts laughing.  
The back of Joseph’s head hits something.  
His breath is cut short in his throat, blood rushes to face and red dots start dancing in front of his eyes.  
The pain spreads all over his skull, searing his scalp like a pumice scraping his skin, and his head hits the bottom of the tub in a new, sparking, stabbing ache.  
He chokes on air and, in a desperate effort to stand up and run, tries to push himself on his arms, only to have them bend and skid under his weight. He barely has the time to see the bathtub tile get closer to his temple before a black curtain falls over his eyes.

He comes back to his senses after what felt like an hour, he’s cold and shivering even if the warm water is still running over his body, and Sebastian is pounding on the door.

“Joseph ? Hey, Joseph ! Can you hear me ?!”

Joseph rises on his weak arms and tries to pull his upper body up by gripping the rim of the tub. He lets out throaty, hoarse “uh” as he pushes himself up.

“I’m coming in,” Sebastian announces, and he does.

Sebastian stops in his tracks as he observes a wet, shaking, confused Joseph with chattering teeth, before running to his side as worry widens his eyes and carved lines between his brows.

“Oh shit shit what happened ?!”

Sebastian shuts the faucet and slides an arm under one of his partner’s, his hand coming to rest on Joseph’s wet hair.

“What happened ? You’re so goddamn pale what did you –”

He feels something warmer than the water against the skin of his palm.  
Fear ties its knot in his throat.  
He slowly pulls his hand back, expecting the worst, and sees it, eyes horrified – blood painting his skin, dripping down his wrist and arm as the water sweeps it in its cascade.

“Oh fuck !”

He curses a little more and pulls two towels out of the shelf. His hands shaking with nervousness but trying to be as gentle as he can, he wraps his partner in one of them, rubbing his shivering body to warm it up, and tries to dry Joseph’s hair with the other.  
As more blood stains the fabric, Sebastian starts panicking. Putting his arms around his weakened partner, he gently pulls him up on his feet, not letting go of him as he knows he would fall, and helps him out of the bathtub.  
Joseph makes a tiny, weak sound that sounds like a protest, but he can’t struggle, red and black dots dancing in front of his eyes, and he lets Sebastian carry him to the bedroom.

Joseph is still shivering and whining in pain as Sebastian lays him on top of the blanket, trying to rub the cold out of his partner’s body with his warm hands and the thick towel.

“I don’t know what happened but I’m getting you to the ER,” Sebastian declares, voice low and thick with panic.

Joseph makes another tiny sound and Sebastian makes him sit up, an arm sliding around his waist, to dry his hair more meticulously.  
More blood reddens the towel.  
Sebastian folds it into a pillow and lets Joseph rests on it.

“Okay, don’t move,” he orders as he runs to their shared closet.

Joseph watches him pick clothes, his brain incapable of making anything out of it.  
It’s only when Sebastian comes back to the bed and unties the knot he made of the towel around his partner’s waist that Joseph realizes.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian huffs as Joseph’s throws his arms over his eyes, trying to hide his face in shame.

He mutters a throaty “goddamnit Seb” as his partner dresses him up.  
Sebastian’s hands, even if hasty and shaking with nervousness, are strangely gentle as they button a shirt over Joseph’s chest, and their warm doesn’t feel unpleasant either on his cold skin.  
Joseph blushes when Sebastian carefully puts his gloves on his hands, fingers adjusting the fabric on his partner’s.  
It may not seem much, but his gloves are such an intimate part of Joseph that not having them on makes him feel so utterly naked and so goddamned vulnerable, and the man is really thankful that his partner takes a few seconds in his rushed panic to put them on.

Sebastian decides to carry the younger man in his arms, only to realize it may not have been the best idea ever as he struggles to lock the apartment door behind him. He puts Joseph back on his feet, letting him lean against the wall, to work the key in the padlock, then takes him back in his arms.  
Sebastian starts nervously laughing as he turns and twirls to avoid Joseph’s feet to get stuck into doors, and soon the two of them are laughing as they pass their neighbors who watch them with mouth hanging open, waiting for moths to fly in.  
They’re giggling like kids after a mischief as Sebastian starts the car.

 

Joseph has been patched up, a white gauze taped quickly to his head.  
‘Nothing serious’, said the nurse, no lesion, nothing broken, not that much blood lost – the mix with the water made it look more than it was.

“We really need to stop running to the doctor every time we bump into something,” Sebastian laughs as they enjoy a coffee in a dinner close to the hospital.  
“Yep,” Joseph chuckles at his turn.

They laugh it off, they really try to, but they know why they are so squeamish at every little red drop they see.  
Because Sebastian saw Joseph’s blood turn grey, black, swell and shape into blisters full of poison, and spurt out of his flesh as a bullet tore through him,  
And the older detective saw his own spurt from wounds he thought he would bear his whole life,  
And now that they’re out of this, they feel that fear creep in their throats every time the crimson liquid escape the blue and purple veins it’s supposed to flow in, they taste on their numb tongues the unshakable feeling that something will go wrong and that monsters will wait for them at the corner, attracted by the metallic smell like vultures by a rotting corpse.

Sebastian takes a sip of his drink.

“Well, I guess we score 1-1,” he jokes.  
“Let’s not keep playing,” Joseph grimaces as he pats the compress on his skull.

Sebastian chuckles. His laugh dies on his lips and hints of guilt start trailing up his spine like slugs.

“Also, I um… I’m sorry for earlier. That must have been really embarrassing.”

Joseph’s nose stills above his drink, eyes widen as they do not dare to look at Sebastian. The younger man tries to fight the red hue creeping up to his face.

“It’s fine,” he tries to brush off, but his voice betrays him. “I couldn’t have gone to the ER naked, anyway,” he tries to joke, but it falls desperately flat on his coffee, and the image of Sebastian clothing his naked body refuses to disappear of his mind.

In another time, under other circumstances, maybe some in which he isn’t bleeding profusely on a towel and his brain isn’t swimming in his skull like in a gelatinous fluid, maybe he wouldn’t have mind–  
He tries to drown that thought with a gulp of coffee and burns his tongue.

Joseph’s commotion mixed with his stupefying meds doesn’t let him think after he’s rolled under the blanket.  
When Sebastian asks him if he minds if the light stays on a little longer, the only thing that comes out of Joseph’s mouth is a low, stunned groan that doesn’t sound like an answer. Sebastian decides to turn it off, as to respect Joseph’s dozing off, and changes into his sleepwear under nothing but the silver light of the moon.

As his eyes are intuitively drawn to his partner’s backside, Joseph thinks that Sebastian was pretty selfish to take his mumbling for a ‘yes’.

 

 

 


	10. The Question.

Most of the people at KCPD have always observed a respectful distance between them and the detectives. Sebastian is a senior, the best this city has ever seen, and Joseph is his right arm, his partner, second best after him. They've always looked intimidating in the eyes of their subordinates, and the way they stood, talked, always so professional and serious, had put off many officers.  
But now, people came closer. Like careful men approaching wounded beasts, more policemen started talking to them. Terror seemed to have made the detectives nicer, a little softer inside, even if they tried to look as stern and upright as before. Startled by noise and by white lights, Sebastian and Joseph seemed way less intimidating.

They had came back after hell, only to be thrown more undead monsters in their face by the unsettling revelations. The Chief had ordered, for the second time, that the two men took more time for them, work through more nightmares crawling out of undressed wounds that they thought had died out like wilting flowers, pull themselves back together for the second – no, hundredth, but this time it hurt real bad – time, stitch the gaping gashes on their brain and nurse them well.  
Krimson City wasn’t doing good, criminality still going strong, but she had other people to put on cases who, even if less experimented, needed to forge some experience. She could always ask Oda and Castellanos to assist them from a distance.  
She didn’t had to.  
Castellanos insisted to come back after a week, asserting he was more useful on the force than at home – well, it was true, but the Chief had hoped he wouldn’t think it – and that the city needed him – that, too, was true.

Sebastian and Joseph worked well. Almost as if they never went through anything. Myra already gone from their, and people’s minds. The Chief felt like the way everything was going was more of a thin, white bandage taped onto a bleeding, yawning cut, but she didn’t say anything.  
She let the two detectives work their way – their old, known way, with a clean email account and lighter walls.

 

The Chief hadn't asked to talk to Sebastian in quite a few weeks, letting him settle himself back into his work before asking the questions hovering over their heads. Eventually, she restarted initiating casual conversations, that lead to what came as close as it could to the older man admitting the horrors he saw back in Ruvik's hell, how he was dealing with the truth, and now they were chatting quite often, the woman seeming quite happy – but nonetheless anxious for Sebastian’s mental health – to see her men back on the force for good.  
She points at Sebastian's nicotine patches that his rolled up sleeves don't cover.

“How are they ?" she asks.  
“Not bad,” he answers. “Sometimes I still miss real cigarettes but I don't really want to go back to them.”  
“I know how ya feel. What does Oda think of it ?”

Sebastian recoils, trying to keep that movement as furtive as he can.

“What do Joseph has to do with that ?" he asks, a little on the defensive.  
“Huh, well I see you two very close, and there are rumors you live together, so I thought that he had a say in that,” she shrugs.

Sebastian tries to read her but she acts nonchalant, not judgmental in any way. She's just waiting for her answer, rubbing her own nicotine patches on her skin.

“Ah, yeah, we, uh, we moved together after – ” he inhales sharply, trying to keep the memories at bay with a wave of his hand, “ – all of what happened. We, um, didn't really feel okay by ourselves, so we did, well, that.”

Sebastian curses himself for stuttering and hesitating so much. There's nothing to be so nervous about, goddammit !  
The Chief nods slowly, her understanding gaze waving over the man.

“So did Oda have a say in your choice,” she asks again, finger tapping the beige patches on her skin, “or nah ?”

Sebastian sighs.

“I decided to quit smoking by myself, but he's the one who told me I'd better buy these. He said he didn't want to see me suffer from withdrawal symptoms, so, there's that.”  
“Clever guy, clever guy,” the woman agrees, taking a sip of her coffee.  
“And you ?" Sebastian asks at his turn. “Did someone make you stop smoking, or did you decide that by yourself ?”

The Chief gently chuckles, staring at her patched arm, tenderness in her eyes. She has a smile on her red lips when she looks up.

“One day, my wife told me I was not getting any hot kisses until I got rid of my cigarette breath”, she laughs.

Sebastian imitates her.

“Sometimes you need someone to kick ya ass to get rid of bad habits, but I'm glad you didn't need that,” she continues, her voice echoing in her coffee mug.

There's a pause where silence tries to settle in, interrupted by the sirens howling outside and the voices behind the window. The Chief puts her empty mug back on her desk.

“Anyway, I'm sure it was very hard for Oda and you, so I'm glad you two can count on each other,” she declares solemnly. “I'm also very glad you have you back on the force.”  
“I'm glad to be back too,” Sebastian answers, slightly bowing to his superior.

The woman put a ginger lock back behind her ear and waves her hand towards the door.

“Now get back to work, Castellanos, you're not paid to chat with me !" she banishes him, her voice stern but a smile twitching the corners of her mouth.  
“I'm going,” the detective says, a laugh stuck in his throat as he trots to the door.  
“You better ! I need my best men here !" the woman says, and she slaps Sebastian's ass with an unholy strength.

Joseph is cautiously going through papers, his eyes flying from the pages to his notebook as he adds lines and circles to a schema taking two pages of it.

“I'm back,” Sebastian announces as he closes the door behind him.  
“What did Chief want ?" Joseph asks without looking up from his task.  
“Welcome me back on the force and slap my ass,” the older man replies playfully.

He expected Joseph to smile, maybe laugh, but there's just a weird, uneasy grimace twitching his lips up.  
_Ah. Uh._

“But, uh, yeah, she's glad to have us back.” Sebastian continues, trying to escape the uneasiness that threatens to set in.

Joseph only nods and his eyes dive deeper into the papers.  
Sebastian paces around for a little while, walking to the window.  
The city is alive. It is standing in gray, black, neons and posters. No scars, no marks of destruction. It feels unreal compared to what they saw back there.

“I'm getting coffee. Do you want a cup ?" he finally asks.  
“Oh, yes please. Thank you.” Joseph says, eyes barely leaving his notebook.

Sebastian nods and walks out of the room, greeting the youngest sergeant assigned in the narcotics division on his way.  
As he approaches the break room, that was once used for smoking but that now serves as a drink machines display, he sees a man, back to the wall, watching him approach with curious eyes and an uneasy smile. Castellanos recognizes him – Arthur Selton, one of the observers in the air support division. They never really spoke, the two men being attributed very different places in the force. As Sebastian puts his hand on the door handle, the other man puts an awkward hand on his shoulder. He has the slightly distorted smile of someone about to ask a question he shouldn't. Sebastian sighs internally. Why him, why now, why this guy ?

“Hello, Selton. Did you want something ?" he politely asks.

The other man laughs uncomfortably.

“Yeah, we were – I mean I was wondering, uh...”

Why does he take so long, god.

“... are you and Oda, like... together ?”

If he had his coffee, Sebastian would have spat it out.

“I'm sorry, what ?”

He's done processing the question, but can't find an answer.  
_Well, it's very simple, we, of course,..._  
Actually, it's not, he thinks.  
He realizes he and Joseph share a very specific intimacy that would read as romantic to most people.  
_But it's not, we don't..._  
They live together, he thinks, they cook together, sometimes one for the other. They share a bathroom quite often, but, but, Sebastian tries to focus, we don't, um, sleep together, for example.  
_I mean,_ he mumbles internally, _we do sleep together, as in, in the same bed, not as..._  
But Selton doesn't know that, and he doesn't need to know that, and, ah,  
he's already backing off, apparently made quite uncomfortable by Sebastian's silence.

“I mean, haha, you don't have to, you know, tell me,” he blurts out, waving his hand in front of his face, his laugh nervous and tense, “it's your business, not mine, and you don't have to, hum, well, you know, share those kinds of details with me, we don't talk too much anyway so, haha, hum...”

He's just embarrassing himself at this point, and the look in his eyes tells that he knows it.

“I'll just, um, go,” he mutters, “good talk uh ? Good talk !”

And with a blink, he's gone, running through the hallway.  
Sebastian stands here, astonished. Apparently, his silence said everything itself.  
_But it's not, we're not..._  
It should have been so easy to answer !  
It's not romantic, it just isn't, but – _but we share the same bed, we sleep in each other's arms, sometimes I kiss his forehead when he's sad, I cook for him like a good husband and on some nights I'm the bigger spoon._  
Sebastian sighs loudly.  
He should have said there wasn't anything between him and Joseph – now, rumors will start sprouting in the offices and in the shower room like mushrooms under wet leaves – but for some reason, denying it would have felt like lying.  
_But nevertheless,_ he thinks, _saying we are together would have been a lie too._  
Sebastian realizes he had been standing in front of the door, hand on the knob, for five whole minutes. He shakes his head to dislocate the sentences of his inner monologue and send them way back into a corner of his mind and pushes the door open.

There are two officers getting their drinks in the break room.  
They seem to be in an intense discussion about elbow scratches. They greet Sebastian when he comes in but don't stay, and they leave the room, their voices sparking in the hallway as they get back to their desks.  
Castellanos walks to the machine and types his command on huge black rectangular keys.  
The sense of ease he's always found in the building has came back after months of being crushed under the weight of monsters hiding in the back of his mind and in the corridors.  
He absently watches the black drink being poured in a white plastic cup.  
As the last dark drops fall from the machine, something dark and ominous appear at the corner of Sebastian's eye.  
Movements slow and cautious as he's being watched, he pulls the full cup from the machine, orders another, and slowly, carefully, looks up from his drink, rotates on his heels, and faces it.  
There's a creature standing there.  
It's quite ugly, disfigured and fleshy. Just like many, many others Sebastian had seen back in Ruvik's artificial hell, the monster has got barbed wire and blades pinned to its face and body like needles on a voodoo doll. Its jaw is hanging open and his burned, cut tongue is falling off its mouth. It's also standing unsteadily – a shoulder heavier than the other, pulling the whole body on the side.  
Ugly and disturbing it is, but Sebastian doesn't react.  
It may be standing here, but it ain't real. Freaking out won't make it disappear, and he feels a little too tired to try the mental exercises he has been prescribed to make it disappear.  
It feels strange, staring at that monster without moving. They're just observing one another, silently judging. Sebastian's heart doesn't start beating faster. His body doesn't tense in a preparation to escape.

“You're not real, ugly, and not getting any coffee. Go stand somewhere else,” the man calmly enunciates. He then pulls the second cup of coffee from the machine and leaves.

 

When Sebastian comes back to his office, Joseph is weighing in the back of his chair, legs stretched, rubbing his eyes as his hands push his glasses on his forehead.

“I got your coffee,” Sebastian announces as he walks to his partner's desk.  
“Oh, thanks, Seb,” Joseph answers, putting his glasses back on his nose and stretching his arm to catch what the other man holds for him.

Sebastian sits back at his desk and pulls a consequent pile of papers from under another pile.

“Here we go,” he grunts, taking a sip of lukewarm coffee, and the two men start working in silence.

A secretary passes by the window, the sound of her heels accompanying the ticking of the clock.  
Another sip.  
The scratching of Joseph's pen on the paper.  
A page being flipped.  
Scratching.  
Breathing.

“I had a hallucination in the break room”, Sebastian says.

Joseph snaps out of his work trance to look at his partner. Sebastian can see the concerned look in his dark eyes.

“Hey, it's okay. Wasn't scary. I just, well, stood there. I took my coffee and went”, Sebastian shrugs.  
“So you didn't get scared ?" Joseph asks, eyes almost admirative.

Castellanos shakes his head with a smile. It has been so long since a monster born from the depths of his brain hasn't scared him shitless and pushed him into a panic attack. Joseph knows that, Sebastian knows that his partner knows. The older man looks into Oda's eyes, expecting a silent congratulation, a furtive happiness for his recovering partner.  
But instead, there's an overwhelming tenderness in the brown eyes and a smile soft and tender, a smile similar to the one Joseph would wear, sleepy, made dizzy by his medication and exhausted, when he would curl up against Sebastian to enjoy his close company and warmth.  
Sebastian's breath gets stuck in his throat as Joseph's smile punches him in the guts – the good, almost gentle, warmth-inducing kind of punch. A tiny “oh” barely leaves his lips.

“I'm so glad !" Joseph says. His eyes are shining with happy lights.

Sebastian has to cough out a nervous laugh and run his fingers through his hair to focus back on his paper – a dark story of underground organ traffic that almost chases Joseph's face out of his mind. Almost.

 

The Chief knocks on their door at 4:24pm.  
“Guys, I'm sending you home. You've been doing full days for weeks after not working for a while, it must be tiring for you and I'm sure you still have personal things to work through, lots hours of sleep to catch up on, so go home and nap,” she says as the two men observe her nonchalant leaning against the window.

“But we're doing fine, ma'am,” Sebastian replies after exchanging a quick look with his partner. “We can stay here for a few more hours.”  
“Well I don't want you to,” she insists, pointing an almost menacing finger. “Get out of this building,” she adds threateningly but with a joking smile.

Sebastian puts his hands up as a surrendering gesture.

“Okay,” Joseph sighs as a gently mocking smile paints his lips, “we'll be going then.”  
“Good,” the Chief smiles as she turns her back to the detectives, pulling the door open, “take some time for yourselves and come back rested and healthy on .”

And with a waving of her hand, she's gone in the corridor.  
The two men share a curious look.

“So. Are we going back home ?" Joseph asks.  
“I guess,” Sebastian answers. “I'm not gonna refuse an occasion to nap,” he adds with a smile.

Joseph imitates him, a soft laugh escaping from his lips, and Sebastian's heart takes a beat so hard he can feel it in his throat.

The two men reorganize the papers on tidy piles, Sebastian quickly sketching a simplified map of the area he had been studying in the organ traffic case in a corner of page, Joseph writing some last keywords in his black notebook.  
Sebastian walks to the coat rack and put his leather jacket on as Joseph turns of the last lights still flashing their honeyed hues onto the desks. The older man then helps his partner put his black coat back on. As Sebastian flattens the fabric onto Joseph's back, his hands lingering on the man's large shoulders, he wonders “ _is that too much of a romantic gesture ? Do friends normally do that ? Will people think we're too close to be only friends ?_ ”  
Eventually, the sight of the brunette secretary waving her hand from behind the window to tell them goodbye makes him stops thinking. She doesn't seem very concerned about the two men's closeness, _so you shouldn't be either, for fuck's sake_ !

 

Joseph drove them back home, Sebastian almost already snoozing and diving torso first into the bed when they make their way to their bedroom.

“I don't know why I feel so tired,” he admits as he kicks his shoes off. “We've been sleeping relatively normally for the past weeks.”  
“You were told you could nap, that idea got implanted in your brain and all your tiredness came out,” Joseph says as he pulls Sebastian's jacket's off his shoulders.

The older man stretches, a loud groan escaping his yawning mouth as his bones crack at different places. He crawls up to let his head fall into his pillow.

“Are you planning on napping too ?" he asks as his eye is instinctively drawn to Joseph's figure that seems to be undressing – _stop that_ ! he has to tell himself.  
“I think I'll take a warm bath and relax. Then I'll see.”  
“Sounds like a good plan,” Sebastian hums in response. He's drifting off to sleep soon after.

Selton's question rings one more time to his ears and he thinks “ _but why do people think we are a couple ? I don't think I see Joseph as anything more than a friend...”_. He barely has the time to feel the blanket being put on him before blacking out.

 

 

 


	11. The Answer.

Sebastian dreams of Joseph.

Now, he has dreamed of Joseph plenty of times.  
Joseph's stern, dark eyes watching his every move as his body gives up and lets him fall on the floor like a ragdoll, fat tears running down his cheeks.  
Joseph's gloved hands grabbing his coat or vest and pushing him into the cottony embrace of the bed, pulling his alcohol-scented tie from his neck, pushing his bloody shirt off his shoulder.  
Joseph's careful fingers picking out glass shards from Sebastian's skin, leaving a sting and a red wet string.  
Joseph's body getting covered in dark blood like flowers sprouting out of his skin – and mouth, and nose, and eyes, and – and imploding, breaking into pieces sharp as glass shards as Sebastian's screams deafens the voyeur observing this thought.

But this time, Sebastian dreams of the slight hollow on Joseph's nape. Of the curves of the muscles of his arms. Of his strong hands and wrists and arms and the blue veins running like rivers here. Of the upsettingly charming shape of his upper lip, drawn like the top of a heart – would it be nice to kiss ? It sure would be. What would it taste like ? Sebastian wonders, and, and – and his eyes snap open, his whole body startled awake by the thought he just had.  
Sebastian has to roll on his back and sit upright to think about what just crossed his mind.  
In the bathroom, the faucet is running.  
_Okay_ , he tries to gather his thoughts. _Okay._  
The picture of Joseph's lips lingers in the back of his mind.  
_Okay._  
Now, he has had thoughts like this before. Not with Joseph, but with the guy from forensics, with the Chief – he shudders at the thought –, with the brunette secretary, hell, even with Kidman – a stronger shudder –, but now...  
This is different. He knows it is.  
Because he didn't wake up disgusted or mildly inconvenienced.  
He woke up with warmth on his lips and somewhere in his chest.  
_Is it because we're partners, and very close, that it didn't gross me out ?_  
There's not just that.  
_God, there's not just that._  
Sebastian lays back down.

There's the two of them sharing an apartment, Joseph's clothes sometimes mixing with his stuff, his partner pacing in the kitchen in nothing but his underwear and one of Sebastian's t-shirts, the nights they hold onto each other for dear life, the nights they hold onto each other because they want to, the way Joseph's breath creates a nest of warmth when he sleeps with his nose buried in the crook of Sebastian's neck, the times Joseph's talked him out of terror while rubbing soapy hands and warm water on his skin, the kisses they shared oh-so-platonically – forehead and cheek and neck –, the smiles Joseph offered him late at night or early in the white light of dawn, the way he would delicately place the needed medication in Sebastian's hand and hold it until he was sure the older man had taken them, offering a very soft smile afterwards, the times they would hold hands as one – or both – of them cried his eyes out and a thumb would draw soothing and tender circles on the back of the other's hand, the – maybe darkly ironic – jokes they made about the horrors they saw and that lived now in their brains that left them laughing and coughing their drinks out, the, the,  
Sebastian has too much to think and he feels like a groundswell of sweet and soft feelings hits him full force.

He rises on his elbows. The ordinary noise of the water running in the next room paints another picture in the back of his mind ; it's Joseph, laying in the tub, a relaxed smile on his lips ; the water is clear and perfectly transparent and Sebastian can see he's – _Okay ! Okay, okay !_  
Sebastian has to rub his eyes to try to chase that image away.  
_Not that it was unpleasant, but –_  
He abruptly stands up and almost runs to the kitchen – cold water, he thinks he really, really needs cold water.

Eventually, Sebastian has calmed down. The water in the bathroom has stopped running. The apartment is silent. Cars are running outside, their engines purring loudly. A siren is bellowing in the distance. The unstoppable tick-tock of the clock accompany Sebastian's thoughts.  
Selton's question still hangs in the air.  
_“Are you two, like... together ?”_  
Sebastian wasn't sure how to answer before. He's even less now.

When Joseph walks into the kitchen, with his wet hair sticking to the sides of his face, a towel wrapped around his shoulders, sweatpants too large for his thighs – probably Sebastian's – and an upsettingly fitting shirt, Sebastian feels his mouth go dry.  
When the hell did he start having those kinds of feelings for his partner ?  
He doesn't know. He can't draw a line.  
“Do you have any idea of what we could have for dinner ?" Joseph asks after sight-checking the room.  
“I, um, was thinking we could order Chinese takeout,” Sebastian answers.  
“Sounds good !" the younger man smiles.  
Sebastian stands up to search for his phone in his jacket's pockets and Joseph goes to sit on the couch.  
_Fuck fuck fuck fuck._

 

Joseph tried to teach Sebastian, for the umpteenth time, how to handle chopsticks, only to have him drop the pieces of his caramel pork into the sauce and watch brown sugary drops splatter the table and his shirt.  
The younger man started laughing, his voice everything but mocking, ringing light and soft in Sebastian’s ears.  
Sebastian laughed nervously, trying to swallow back the burst of affection that threatened to spill from his lips, and switched the chopsticks for a fork and a knife under his partner’s fond gaze.

Sebastian’s mind cannot keep quiet. Selton’s question runs from one corner of his brain to the other, bumping into the furniture and spilling drinks everywhere.  
_‘Are you two together ? Are you two together ? Are you two together ?’_  
Sebastian tries to find an answer as Joseph pours water to be boiled for their herbal teas.  
_‘Are you ? Are you ? Are you ?’_  
They are together in the sense that they live together, Sebastian argues with the part of himself that looks at him with a knowing rise of eyebrows, they cook together, they sleep together – _as in, in the same bed, not like, well, ah_ – but, Sebastian repeats in his mind like a broken record spinning in the void, they are not overly affectionate – except for the times Joseph had slept in his arms, the times they kissed each other’s cheeks and neck and forehead _in a totally platonic and friendly way_ – they don’t _um, let’s see, uh, share naked moments !_ – except for the times they took care of the, very naked under the shower, other.  
Sebastian feels his thought macerating and boiling under his skull, the heat of the concoction spreading in his chest and to his cheeks.  
_We don't, uuuh, I mean I never thought about kissing him_ – except, well, not an hour ago, when he woke up from a dream strangely pleasant, the image of Joseph’s divinely shaped lips not leaving his mind ever since, or that time they went to the seaside and stopped into that cozy little restaurant on their way home – Sebastian remembers not being able to tear his gaze off Joseph’s mouth as it kissed the edge of his glass, the heat on his cheeks not only due to the candles and the dim lights.

He takes a deep, deep breath.  
Joseph handing him his hot drink makes him jump out of his abstraction, and the brush of his fingers against his partner’s as the steaming cup passes from one hand to another makes Sebastian's heart beat erratically in his chest.  
_God I think I’m fucked._  
Joseph leans against the kitchen counter and Sebastian watches his lips curl into a tiny “o” as he blows over his drink to cool it off.  
Sebastian swallows back that goddamned feeling that, he is afraid, he can name without a doubt and dives back into his introspection.  
_I, I – I never even_ thought _of having any kind of sexual relationship with him._  
… Well, not until that point, apparently.  
The blurry picture of Joseph that got imprinted in his mind as he hastily dressed him up to drive him to the ER gets a new layer of neatness, a lower, more intimate lighting, and _maybe if Joseph’s face and chest were a little more red, his lips curled in a smile (or maybe bitten by his teeth ? that looks good too…)_ _and his fist buried in the sheet, maybe_ –  
Sebastian almost spits his drink out, gobbles it back right in time but chokes on it and starts coughing.  
Joseph looks up from his drink and trots to his partner’s side, an encouraging little “hey” escaping his lips as he gently pats Sebastian’s back to get the coughing out.  
Sebastian thanks him, tears in his eyes from the burning water and the hacking.

Maybe he should stop think about that, he chastises himself. There’s no way in hell Joseph can share those feelings.  
_Joseph_ ? Desiring _him_ ? No fucking way. He has seen him in way too many embarrassing, embarrassingly drunk, bloody and messy compromising positions on floors wet with alcohol to see him as anything more than a friend.  
A messy, chaotic, alcoholic friend.

Joseph walks back to his spot against the counter. The older man puts his mug on the table next to him and his hands subconsciously join in a praying stance.  
Last time he invoked the name of God, he wanted monsters to get out of his brain. Now, he’s asking the Lord for strength, courage, and eventually a slap in the face if that could calm him down.  
_GOD I’m fucked._

 _‘Are you two together ?’_  
The question rings one more time between his hot ears before he decides, in a momentum of bravery, that he couldn’t find the answer by himself, he could ask and cross his fingers for the best.

“So, hum, I met Selton this afternoon and he asked me something.”

Joseph hums in his mug as to encourage him to continue.

“And he, ah, he…”

Sebastian twists his fingers and anxiously bites his lips. He feels like a teenage girl asking her crush out and this is really, really something he wished he’d never had to feel again.

“Are we a couple ?” he finally manages to blurt out.

He waits for Joseph’s reaction.  
The younger man is staring at him, eyes wide behind his thick glasses. Sebastian is expecting him to burst out laughing at any seconds, and _God please do and save me_ , he begs in thoughts.  
Except Joseph doesn’t laugh.  
His gaze shifts from astonished to low, shy, trying to find a way to escape under Joseph’s lashes.  
_Wait what ? What is going on ?_  
Joseph purses his lips – Sebastian can see the warm water of the tea making them shine – and, looking down into his drink as he fights to keep his chin lifted in pride and composure, mutters a bashful :

“Do you want us to be ?”

If Sebastian didn't carefully close his mouth after finishing speaking, his jaw probably would have dropped to the floor.  
He thinks.  
If they were together, as in _together,_ what would change ? In their shared lives, in their shared bed, what would be disturbed ?  
_Nothing much_ , Sebastian concludes.  
Maybe they would kiss a little more often, maybe on the lips, and maybe they would –  
_Okay, let’s think about this later._

“Yeah,” Sebastian finally answers, and his heart starts beating louder at his temples just as he thinks of the implications.

He catches Joseph smiling out of the corner of his eyes.

“I’m glad,” the younger man says, voice soft and warm, trying to hide the smile that teases the corner of his mouth.

Sebastian’s mouth feels dry, so dry, his lips twitching involuntary, waiting for something.

“So… are we, well… dating ?” Sebastian asks. The word feels utterly sweet on his tongue, almost foreign but excitingly new.

Joseph’s mouth switches from his smile to a grimace, then to a smile again.

“That sounds weird, but… I guess we are ?”

Sebastian’s hands unlock from their praying position.  
The next few seconds unwind under the two men’s eyes.  
Sebastian leaves the table against which he was leaning and, either oh so carefully, taking deliberate and light steps, carried by the light and warm feelings spreading inside of him, he walks to Joseph.  
Joseph deep dark eyes meet his and they’re so full of hope, shining with anticipation, that Sebastian almost trips and falls onto his partner’s lap.  
He lays, deliberate and calm, his two hands on the counter on each sides of the younger man’s hips.  
Sebastian comes closer, closer, under Joseph’s gleaming brown eyes, until he feels his partner’s breath on his lips.

“We don’t have to do more than we’re already doing,” Joseph whispers, his voice crashing on his partner’s chin like waves of a warm sea against the rocks.

Sebastian’s eyes dart to his lips and, as he closes the few centimeters left between them, he can hear Joseph’s breath hitch in his throat with nervous anticipation and impatience.  
Joseph puts his mug aside and Sebastian’s lips meet his in a tender, and a little wet with tea, caress.  
The clock seems to go mute and the two men are left, suspended in time like two acrobats, in nothing but the other’s presence and their soft, almost shy, lips.  
Soft and coy like people write first kisses to be.  
They break the fragile lock of their kiss soon enough, as if astonished, maybe overwhelmed, and Joseph makes Sebastian jump in surprise as he embraces him in a desperate grasp.

“Oh God I’ve wanted this for so long…” Sebastian can hear Joseph whisper, voice shaking with emotion, in the crook of his neck.

Sebastian slides one of his arms around his partner’s waist to pull his closer.

“How long ?” he asks, his voice as low as Joseph’s as he runs an affectionate hand through the younger man’s wet hair.  
“How long have we been partners ?” Joseph asks, and Sebastian’s eyebrows rise as he does the math in his brain almost too full of love to function.  
“Something like nine years, I believe,” he answers against his partner’s ear.  
“Then I’ve been wanting this for ‘something like nine years, I believe’, minus three weeks.”

Sebastian freezes in shock.  
Nine years minus three weeks ?  
His heart almost fall out of his mouth as he realizes.  
Nine years.

“How…?” he tries to ask, but his voice cracks.

Joseph laughs softly in the crook of his neck.

“On the day we were introduced to each other, I thought ‘oh no he’s hot’.”

Sebastian blushes, a small flower of pride blossoming in his chest.

“After the first week, I was thinking ‘oh no he’s smart’. After the second, I was thinking ‘oh no he’s nice’. After the third, I knew I was a goner.”

His voice turned a little sour in his throat, and Sebastian hugs him tighter.  
Nine years.

“I thought it would be like that kind of embarrassing middle school crush,” Joseph recounts, voice lost in memories, “that it would disappear after a few weeks, months if I was unlucky. Except it didn’t.”

A gloved hands starts to gently stroke one of Sebastian’s shoulder.

“We got closer, closer, I discovered who you were under your rough exterior, and I just…”

He sighs and memories spill, loving yet a little bitter, from his mouth.

“... I kept falling in love with you, over and over again.”

The words ring like a deep, heavenly bell to Sebastian’s ears, even if guilt threatens to engulf him like a wave devouring a drowning man.

“But when I –”

He can’t finish his sentence, but Joseph reads it on his twitching lips.

“I didn’t stop loving you. I didn’t. I thought I would, I really did – but I kept loving you, even when you smelled more like smoke than soap, when you would show up drunk to the office, when you would do the same at my doorstep and sob all over my carpet.”

Sebastian thinks he’s going to cry.  
Nine years.  
Joseph loved him when he invited him to his wedding, loved him when he brought three-days old Lily to the force, loved him when he lost her, loved him when he lost Myra, loved him when he lost his mind.

Joseph gently disentangle himself out of his partner’s embrace.

“Do you know why I started wearing gloves ?” he asks.

Sebastian shakes his head. Joseph pulls one of his hand to his chest.

“When I started bringing you home from bars you got drunk in and had to help you get undressed, get into the bathtub, I had that crippling fear that, eventually, my affection would traverse the skin of my palms and fingertips as I touched you. I was terrified I would start being inappropriate, unprofessional, that you would feel that I was trying to hide as I held you.”

A sad little smile distorts Joseph’s lips as he curls and uncurls his fingers.

“I put the gloves on in an attempt to keep it all in, locked under the leather. They were like… a shield. Not much to protect myself, but to protect you.”

He clenches his fist.

“After a while, I couldn’t dare to remove them.”

When he’s done talking, his voice having died between his lips and Sebastian, the two men stay a few instants in silence, Joseph swimming in the secret he finally was able to spill, splashing his partner in doing so, and Sebastian talking all the revelations in, and everything they entails.

With an absolute tenderness, Sebastian takes Joseph’s hand in his, uncurls his tense fingers and, in deliberate and enamored moves, pulls his partner’s gloves off.  
Joseph’s fingers twitch and bend, as if trying to hide from the man’s gaze.  
Sebastian’s takes gentle hold of Joseph’s wrist and guide his shy hand to his cheek.  
The younger man watches, almost overwhelmed, his palm being settled on the plane of his partner’s stubbly cheek. He opens his mouth to speak but only a tiny, strangled shocked noise comes out. His hand not leaving the offered cheek, he snuggles up against Sebastian’s chest, in the warmth of his arms, letting out small curses that make the older man laugh.

“I’m the worst detective alive,” Sebastian chuckles as he strokes his partner’s back, “nine years and I didn’t see anything !”  
“Only a detective can hide something from another detective”, Joseph follows, his laugh muffled in the hollow of Sebastian’s neck, his naked thumb drawing circles on the older man’s cheekbone.  
“I thought you had a crush on Kidman,” Sebastian continues, shaking his head as his own blindness.  
“Oh no,” Joseph grins against his partner’s skin, “she’s gay too.”

Sebastian’s mind jumps over his partner’s coming out – even if, Sebastian thinks, it must feel incredibly liberating to let that out after so long, and he strokes his partner’s back a little harder – to fall back in front of Tatiana, in that dinner, as her lips curl and twist :  
_‘Juli and I, we got kind of… close.’_  
_Oooh._

Joseph pulls his nose from the crook of Sebastian’s neck to ask him, in a soft voice :  
“You…?”  
“Bisexual,” Sebastian blurts out.

He braces himself for a response, something, as last time he came out to a lover, to Myra, it didn't… _well,_ he mentally shrugs, _it could have been worse. It_ _could have been worse_ – but Joseph is just nestling himself back against him, humming in the hollow of his clavicle, gently rubbing his skin with his naked hand.

They stay in silence, cradling each other, as the clock starts ticking again.  
Joseph decided he’d pepper soft kisses on the skin he can reach, and so Sebastian receives little warm pecks all over the side of his throat on his collarbone.  
It has been a while since each of them felt this, this warm moment that comes after the first kiss, where time starts marching around them again and they realize they can exist, they exist, in love, and tangible in this plane of reality.  
Reality.  
That, too, is something they thought they’d never find again.

“My drink is going to cool,” Joseph whispers.

 

They walk to the bedroom, not letting go of the other.  
Sebastian changes into his sleepwear, Joseph watching off and on, his eyes still shy but shining with fondness and maybe a little appreciation too. Sebastian doesn't mind. He actually feels quite proud  
Joseph feeling _enamored_ as he watches _him_ ? Unbelievable. Amazing. He’d show Joseph his naked ass if it meant he’d get more of his fond gaze.  
Sebastian slides under the cover and his starry-eyed partner crawls to him in a frenetic ruffle of sheets to trap him in his muscled arms.  
Sebastian doesn’t mind. He laughs sweetly as he buries his face into Joseph’s shampoo-scented hair and returns the embrace.

“I love you,” Joseph murmurs against his chest.

Sebastian’s heart misses a beat. The words jump in his throat but don’t come out.  
Oh god.  
Joseph loves him.  
He still cannot believe it.  
He hugs his partner tighter and whispers, at his turn :

“I love you too.”

Holds him tighter, tighter. Their legs entwine.

“God, I love you too,” his voice, strangled and thick, whimpers.

Joseph gives him a wet smooch that misses his lips from a few millimeters.

“Ah fuck, missed,” the younger man curses.  
“You’ll try again tomorrow, when the meds will have worn off,” Sebastian says, a fond smile painted on his face and shining in his eyes.  
“You bet your ass I will.”

 

He wakes up to an empty bed.  
Fear rises in his throat.  
_Shit. Did I fuck up somewhere ? Did I fuck up ?_  
He rolls in the bed to discover, on his bedstand, a small note.  
A piece of normality, something anchoring him into the past months. They had been doing that.  
“Hello, Seb. I am in the bathroom. The door is not locked.”  
Of course it isn’t.  
Joseph’s writing reads like an invitation.  
Sebastian gets up on his feet.

He knocks twice on the bathroom door and steps in without waiting for an answer. Joseph is taking a bath, head thrown back as he relaxes into the tub. He opens his eyes when he hears his partner coming in, and greets him with an adoring smile.

“Hi, Sebastian.”

Sebastian smiles and approaches him, crouching next to the tub.  
The two men look into the other’s eyes, picking up golden lights and gleaming stars. Sebastian comes a little closer, wait painted on his smile, and Joseph crosses the distance between their lips to give him the proper kiss he tried to grant Sebastian the evening before.

“There you go,” Joseph whispers against his partner’s mouth.  
“And good morning to you too.” Sebastian smiles.

The older man gets up and walks to the sink, taking the shaving foam out of the shelf, but Joseph’s voice interrupts him as he opens the can.

“Sebastian ?”, the younger man’s voice calls him.

Sebastian turns to his partner.  
He watches him bite his lower lip, cheeks colored with a hint of red, as if trying to gather the courage to ask him something.

“... Join me ?”

Joseph taps the edge of the tub.  
Sebastian straightens as surprise washes over him, a short “oh !” crossing his lips, before he puts the shaving cream back in the cupboard.  
He undresses, Joseph looking away, a little shameful, and walks to the tub.  
His hands instinctively cover his crotch.  
He knows he is naked, but he feels a little, well, _too_ naked. Walking in or undressing to his underwear didn’t seem to bother him, and when he was piss-drunk and Joseph had to peel the clothes from his skin, well, he didn’t care, because he was half passed out in the other man’s arms, but now he feels… almost weird.  
He is _naked_. Naked ! Ass naked, privates exposed, he cannot hide except under his hands. Naked, like that !  
He takes a deep breath and hopes he doesn't too ridiculous.  
_After all, as Joseph and I go further into this relationship, maybe will come a time when –_  
He sucks in a sharp breath and steps into the water. Joseph presses his back to one of the sides of the tub to make room for his partner.  
Once he has sat into the water, Sebastian doesn’t feel that vulnerable anymore. Maybe the water isn’t opaque, and if he looked down Sebastian would totally see what he did when he laid a wet and bleeding Joseph onto the blanket last time one of them hurt himself, but he doesn’t, because that’s rude, and he isn’t in here for this at this moment.  
Joseph runs a wet hand through his hair and Sebastian purrs. Joseph chuckles.  
They find themselves half-sitting in the water, holding each other in soapy arms, legs entwined, Sebastian’s head on Joseph’s shoulder as they rub foamy circles on the other’s skin.  
None of them seem to really care about the ‘nudity’ factor of the instant. They bathe into the warm water and the other’s gentleness, Sebastian’s stubble tickling Joseph’s clavicle, feeling naked skin against theirs in something tender, intimate, that no monster comes to disturb.

They will break down again, pieces of themselves like shards on the floor, they know they will, because the monstrosities that a brain creates are never really gone.  
They know the will have days where they will be sobbing like mad men again, curled up on the floor like pain is tearing them apart.  
They know they will have to face again a ghost in the mirror with blank black eyes.  
They know they will.  
But for the moment, they are sharing the warmth of a water with the scent of soap, running their hands in lazy, loving strokes on the other’s skin. Their eyes closed themselves and drops are running on their faces like tears they won’t have to shed.  
They know they will have to nurse wounds that won’t ever really scar for good.  
They also know they have the other, his support, his love – love, love, love, Sebastian thought he would never have it on his mind again – and they shall help stitch, puppets of cloth, the other back together every time stuffing starts to spill, now with gentle kisses added on each knot they make of the thread.

 

 

 

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would like to thank the pickles I ate at 1:45 in the morning that gave me the boost necessary to finish this gay piece of crap, my cat for sleeping next to my pillow, getting fleas in my sheets and thus keeping me out of my bed, instant noodles, and the ominous silence of the night as nothing but the sound of my angry fingers running on the keys is heard.  
> also thank you, you who made it through 45k+ words just to watch two losers kiss, you’re the real mvp.
> 
> i will probably write on something Explicit to give myself a sense of accomplishment, so stay tuned for that and maybe juli and tatiana’s story ?


End file.
